Speaker Mike Johnson has insisted he’s not holding any ‘grudges’ against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for trying to have him fired, but other Republicans are done with the chaos she and her rabble-rousing cohorts have brought on this Congress.
‘I don’t hold grudges. I’ve got to work with everybody. I told her last night before she left the floor, let’s move on, Marjorie,’ Johnson told ‘Fox and Friends’ on Thursday.
Johnson told Politico he told Greene on the House floor after the vote: ‘I’m not angry about this. We have to work together. And I want to work with you guys and those ideas we were talking about. I’m still working on them, so I hope we can put this behind us and move forward.’
Johnson said Greene signaled a willingness to work with him.
Other Republicans have not been so kind to the Georgia firebrand – and some have quietly suggested she be removed from committees.
Speaker Mike Johnson has insisted he’s not holding any ‘grudges’ against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for trying to have him fired, but other Republicans are done with the chaos she and her rabble-rousing cohorts have brought on this Congress
‘I don’t hold grudges. I’ve got to work with everybody. I told her last night before she left the floor, let’s move on, Marjorie,’ Johnson told ‘Fox and Friends’ on Thursday
Johnson, however, has already signaled that removing members from committees as retribution could have consequences, and is unlikely to heed such calls.
‘They probably want to kick me off committees. They probably want a primary,’ Greene acknowledged after the failed vote on Wednesday. ‘I say, go ahead.’
Ideas that have been floated include allowing the GOP conference to vote on removing a member from committees or even from the conference itself if they force a motion to vacate.
The biggest change less troublesome Republicans have demanded is to the rule former Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to allowing a single member to file a motion to vacate and force a vote on the House floor. That rule change led to his ultimate demise – Democrats did not swoop in to help the way they did with Johnson.
It’s unlikely they could do this before next Congress. With a one-vote margin and right-wing conservatives opposed to it, they’d need Democratic help to change the rules. That is almost certain to be further than Democrats are willing to go to help the speaker.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said the ones who voted to table, or kill, the motion to oust Johnson would be the ones who faced consequences, predicting they would ‘take an ass-whooping from their base.’
In addition to two movements to oust speakers, Republicans have thwarted the leadership agenda by opposing typically mundane procedural votes that set up a final vote on legislation.
Members have already proposed removing Republicans who oppose the speaker’s priority legislation on the Rules Committee, through which nearly all bills pass.
‘Members who refuse to support the Speaker’s agenda should resign from the Rules Committee immediately. If they refuse, they should be removed immediately. They are there on behalf of the conference, not themselves,’ Rep. Mike Lawler wrote on X weeks ago. He reignited those calls after the Wednesday vote.
Just 10 Republican colleagues joined the Greene in voting to advance the motion to vacate that would kick the speaker out of office.
It took just 30 minutes for her effort to collapse in scenes reminiscent of the circus that led to the vote to get rid of Kevin McCarthy.
Only 43 House members voted to move Greene’s motion forward.
A vote to ‘table’ or kill, the motion succeeded 359 to 43.
The typically reserved Johnson let loose after the vote: ‘Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress.’
Even former President Donald Trump came out against the motion.
Trump defended Greene but said now is ‘not the time’ for her motion, and said it is ‘his request’ that Republicans vote to table the motion – even though the post was after the vote to table had passed.
‘I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come,’ he wrote.
‘With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.’
Trump went on: ‘If we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything!’
He called Mike Johnson a ‘good man who is trying very hard.’
Only thirty-two Democrats voted against the effort to kill the motion, a spectacular reversal from months ago when all Democrats voted with eight Republicans to kick out McCarthy.
More Republicans – 11 – voted to oust Johnson than McCarthy – eight – even as the Louisiana Republican had at one time been pitched as the conservative alternative to his California counterpart.
Greene had been met with boos and eye rolls as she called up her motion during votes on Wednesday.
Members of the GOP accused her of throwing a ‘tantrum’ and attention-seeking as she brought her motion to vacate to the House floor on Wednesday night.
‘It’s times like this you need a bar in this place,’ Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, muttered as he came off the House floor.
‘You’re not the Republican Party!’ Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., heckled Greene as she gaggled with reporters after the vote.
‘Moscow Marjorie has clearly gone off the deep end— maybe the result of a space laser,’ said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.
Asked if he thought Greene should be punished, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said: ‘One dumpster fire at a time.’
Meanwhile on the House floor, Greene railed against the two-part spending bill that funded the government for fiscal year 2024, a bill that reauthorized spy tool FISA without warrants and a foreign aid package that did not include border security.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .