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Far-right Republicans Greene and Gosar restored to House committees

Greene will sit on House homeland security committee, Gosar on natural resources and both on oversight

Two far-right members of Congress whose threatening behavior prompted their removal from committees when Democrats controlled the US House were given assignments on Tuesday by the new Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy .

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia will sit on the House homeland security committee and the oversight committee . Paul Gosar of Arizona was named to oversight and natural resources.

Democrats removed Greene from committees in February 2021, citing incendiary behavior including advocating the assassination of opponents and voicing support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories, including bizarre claims about 9/11 and the Parkland school shooting.

Eleven Republicans supported Greene’s removal but despite being condemned by party leaders for speaking at a white supremacist conference last February, the Georgia congresswoman has since become close to McCarthy.

Earlier this month, Greene did not join the far-right rebellion which dragged McCarthy through 15 rounds of voting before he was confirmed as speaker.

A congresswoman who recently said the January 6 attack on the US Capitol would have succeeded had she organised it will now sit on the homeland security committee.

That panel is set to spearhead Republican attacks, possibly including impeachment, against Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, over immigration policy and border security.

On Tuesday, Greene tweeted : “It is time to restore dignity to the people, Border Patrol, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and the families who have lost a loved one to the cartel’s fentanyl murders and illegal alien crime.

“I serve the American people and no one else. As far as I’m concerned American dignity is the only one that matters.”

The oversight committee is also due to lead Republican attacks on Biden and his administration. Its chairman, James Comer of Kentucky, has fronted early salvoes over the discovery of classified documents at a Biden office and residence, from his time as vice-president to Barack Obama.

Gosar, who attended the same white supremacist conference as Greene, was censured and removed from committees in November 2021, after tweeting an anime-style video which showed him striking the New York progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword and also menacing Biden. Two Republicans supported his removal.

Earlier this month, early in the run of votes by which McCarthy became speaker, Gosar and Ocasio-Cortez were filmed talking to each other in the House chamber.

Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC : “In chaos, anything is possible, especially in this era.”

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Who Got What They Wanted?

Marjorie taylor greene and paul gosar have their committees back. but others were less fortunate..

The appointment of various members of Congress to various seats on committees—something that happens at the start of each new Congress—is typically not that interesting of a process. But then, this is not a typical Congress.

Republicans, back in the majority, are seeking to reinstate the committee assignments for two members, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Democrats had stripped of their assignments in the previous Congress. (Republicans are also looking for revenge by stripping a few Democrats of their assignments). And some members are fresh off of a very public standoff in which they used certain committee seats as a cudgel to bend McCarthy to their will in exchange for supporting him for speaker.

To be clear, committee assignments aren’t officially set yet, even though we’re a few weeks into the new Congress. First, the leaders of the respective parties have to cut a deal on committee ratios, and then each party’s respective steering committee decides who goes where. That’s where we are now. Next, each respective party caucus and conference will approve their steering committees’ recommendations, and then the whole House has to sign off on them too.

But with most of the steering committee recommendations in, let’s look at some of the notable placements.

Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene are back.

For a long time, the House majority wouldn’t fiddle with the minority’s committee selections. But they always could . After all, a majority can do whatever it wants with 218 votes. Twice in the last Congress, then, Democrats took a step that was unprecedented in modern times: They voted to strip two separate members of the minority from their committee assignments for incidents they found beyond the pale.

In February of 2021, barely into the new Congress, all Democrats (and 11 Republicans) voted to strip Greene from two committee assignments for a series of dingbat stunts and amping of conspiracy theories that occurred mostly before she got to Congress: “liking” Facebook posts about shooting then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dabbling in 9/11 trutherism, and confronting school shooting survivors.

Nine months later, Gosar was removed from his committees—and censured—for posting an anime video in which he was depicted killing New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with swords. (Gosar and AOC, interestingly, were spotted having a floor conversation during this month’s speakership ordeal.)

McCarthy pledged that each of these members of Congress would get their committee assignments back if Republicans retook the majority. They ran with that information in different ways. Greene became one of McCarthy’s most loyal allies as he sought to corral the votes for the speakership, while Gosar was one of the 20 holdouts who didn’t come around to McCarthy’s side until the 12 th ballot.

It didn’t appear to make a lick of difference. Gosar was still restored to the same committees from which he was removed—Natural Resources and Oversight. Greene also landed on Oversight, the committee that has wide latitude to investigate and make a spectacle of the Biden administration, as well as on Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over happenings at the southern border. Neither of Greene’s committees are going to produce major bipartisan legislation that unites America. But they will hold many televised hearings during which Greene can yell at Biden administration officials.

What of the other McCarthy-speaker-vote holdouts?

There was a time, oh there was a time, when junior, backbench members wouldn’t dare deny the speaker-in-waiting the gavel, because they knew they’d be lighting their careers on fire. That time was pretty recent. Former Rep. Kathleen Rice, for example, tried to topple Pelosi ahead of the 2019 speaker’s vote. She failed at that, and then was mysteriously unable to secure the spot on the Judiciary committee for which she considered herself next in line.

Nowadays, Republican leaders would get in trouble with right-wing media if they tried to mete out consequences to annoying people. (That last sentence better explains the previous decade of politics more than anything else I’ve written.) So instead, several of the holdouts appear to have been rewarded with prized seats on so-called “A” committees, which are highly sought. Texas Rep. Michael Cloud and Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, both holdouts, won seats on Appropriations, while Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, whom the holdouts nominated on numerous speakership ballots, will serve on Financial Services. Six of the holdouts will be on Oversight, and several others on Judiciary—the two prime spots for people who just want to heckle Joe Biden.

One line that was not crossed, though, was giving holdouts the specific committee or subcommittee chairmanships they asked for. Maryland Rep. Andy Harris reportedly wanted control of a powerful Appropriations subcommittee controlling health spending. He got a different subcommittee gavel. And Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz reportedly wanted a subcommittee chairmanship on Armed Services. He didn’t get it.

George Santos won seats on the Siberia committees that meet in Siberia.

There was some outrage from Democrats that Republicans would deign to give assignments to George Santos, who’s in the midst of a scandal in which he appears to have made up much of his life story. (This could have consequences beyond mere political shame.) The committees to which he was assigned, though, aren’t universally recognized as power centers in the United States Congress. He will sit on the Small Business and Science, Space and Technology committees. Even if something “cool” does come along in science (which Santos invented, didn’tcha know?), he’ll be too junior on the committee to have any say in it. Oh well! He shouldn’t have made up so many lies.

Did McCarthy punish any House Republicans?

There is one guy who thinks McCarthy screwed him. Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan lost the race to chair the Ways and Means Committee—the “A”-est of the “A” committees—to Missouri Rep. Jason Smith. Per Puck’s reporting, Buchanan blamed McCarthy for siding with Smith and walked up to McCarthy on the floor to say, “You fucked me, I know it was you, you whipped against me.” Buchanan, a rich guy with a private plane who has better things to do than this, has reportedly been mulling retirement if he’s not going to chair the committee. And that’s part of why McCarthy moved this contested chairmanship decision until after he had Buchanan’s vote for speaker.

Which Democrats are Republicans planning to kick off of committees?

McCarthy has sworn he will make good on a promise to remove California Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two villains of the Fox News universe, from their seats on the Intelligence committee in retaliation for their roles in Trump investigations. McCarthy also plans to boot Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs. McCarthy could remove Schiff and Swalwell unilaterally as Intel is a select committee. Omar’s removal from a standing committee would have to be done by House vote.

What about the Rules committee?

This is the big one we’re still waiting to see. McCarthy, as speaker, has the ability to appoint Republican members of the Rules committee, which sets the parameters for floor consideration of most major legislation. The speaker’s control of this committee, which he typically stocks with the most loyal of allies, is a fundamental part of the speaker’s control of the House. According to reporting of the deal McCarthy struck with far-right holdouts, though, conservatives in the Freedom Caucus (or fellow ideological travelers) are supposed to get three seats on the Rules Committee.

This has the potential to be one of McCarthy’s most meaningful concessions. The breakdown on the Rules Committee is typically nine speaker-controlled warm bodies to four members from the minority. Giving three seats to the Freedom Caucus could leave McCarthy with only 6 remote-controlled McCarthy stans—i.e., a minority. McCarthy has yet to make his appointments here beyond the chairman, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, but it’s worth paying close attention to the specific hardliners he lets in.

Watch CBS News

House committee assignments once were the seat of power. Do they matter anymore?

By Zak Hudak

April 15, 2021 / 4:41 PM EDT / CBS News

House Democrats celebrated in early February when they successfully removed Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments. It was a move they thought would neutralize the freshman congresswoman who promoted conspiracy theories about mass shootings and the government when she was a candidate. 

But Greene, who also spread falsehoods about the 2020 election , saw an opportunity. 

"I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving someone like me free time," Greene tweeted the following day. 

And she's probably still laughing: in her first three months in office, the congresswoman from Georgia raised $3.2 million from more than 100,000 donors, her campaign said last week.

But without a place on any committees, where the details and language of bills are traditionally hashed out, she is relegated to the far end of the bench as a legislator. Paired with her newfound publicity, Greene has found herself in a paradoxical role that could become more common in Congress. 

Facing allegations of breaking sex trafficking law and having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida became the latest member at risk of losing his committee assignments. If the allegations are found to be true, House Republicans will kick Gaetz off his committees, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said late last month.

But in Greene's case, the House Republican Caucus voted not to do so. It was  the Democrats who brought a resolution to the House floor and overpowered the Republicans with the help of about a dozen GOP members who crossed party lines. 

It was the first known instance of the majority party voting to overturn the will of the minority party in order to remove one of their members from committees, and Republicans have signaled they're ready for revenge whenever they retake the House. 

This may come to pass soon. Democrats have what is in practice a bare two-seat hold because of vacancies that are unfilled, and the reapportionment from the 2020 census is likely to mean that in the 2020 midterm elections, some Democratic-dominant states will lose seats while more GOP-friendly states gain them.

Still, before the vote, McCarthy said that  "the resolution sets a dangerous new standard" and warned Democrats, "You'll regret this." 

The next month, McCarthy introduced his own resolution to remove Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell from his post on the Intelligence Committee over allegations a Chinese spy raised funds for his campaign a half decade ago. The measure failed along party lines, but the message was clear. 

Committee assignments are important to most members of Congress because they allow them to shape laws and become specialists on particular areas of legislation. After a member introduces a bill, the House Speaker or parliamentarian assigns the bill to one or more committees.

Then it's up to the committee chair, who is almost always a member of the majority party, to decide which bills to consider. At committee hearings, less influential members have the chance to air the concerns of their constituents with a greater authority than they hold on the floor. They also get the chance to question experts and stakeholders about policy. 

Before a bill can reach the floor, a majority of a committee's members must agree on the specifics and language of it. Greene, who had been assigned coveted posts at both the Budget and the Education and Labor Committees, has lost the ability to directly participate in that process. 

"She has been neutered in a sense because the policy that we bring to the floor is so important," said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida who introduced the resolution to remove Greene from her committee assignments.

On the floor, Greene can still debate and vote on amendments to the bill along with the other House members and then vote on the bill in its entirety. But while bills can change drastically after reaching the floor, they are typically most influenced in committees.

A large part of the perfect storm that brought down former Representative Steve King after eight terms was his diminished ability  to legislate, said Sarah Chamberlin, the founder and president of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Chamberlin's PAC spent over $100,000 supporting Representative Randy Feenstra's primary bid against King after the longtime congressman was taken off his committees by his own caucus for speaking in support of white supremacy.

The assignments King lost included one on the Agriculture Committee, where bills critical to the Iowa farming communities he represented are written.

"Whatever you think of Steve King, it's clear that he's no longer effective," a local conservative said in a television ad Main Street ran ahead of the election.

But Georgia voters in the 14th Congressional District are likely to view Greene's removal differently because it came from the opposing party.

"It makes you almost a martyr to the primary voters," Chamberlin said. "We did not hit Steve King on his comments [in support of white supremacy] because we didn't want to make him a martyr. We wanted to stick to business."

Greene also differs from King in that her banishment came with Democrats in control of the House, Senate and White House. Arguably, representation on the committees under these conditions matters less. Republican Representative David Schweikert of Arizona said that true bill authorship has been consolidated within the Democratic party's House leadership.

 "There was always, 'Hey here's our big picture agenda.' And you could, as a member, bust your hump to influence its drafting and design. Now, even the language comes down from on high, not just the concept," Schweikert said. "In many ways, last year and this year, committees have become more theatrical."

Without a chance to take part in those theatrics, Greene makes mischief on the House floor, often delaying proceedings by introducing motions to adjourn that are certain to fail. And even without committee assignments, she can certainly still introduce legislation. Greene recently  recently announced a bill to cut Dr. Anthony Fauci's salary to $0.

While these actions had little tangible results, they're causing concern among Democrats, some of whom want Greene removed from Congress outright. Before the vote to take Greene off her committees, Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez of California introduced a resolution that would expel her from Congress, but this would require a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority.

"She still maintains the ability to cause trouble. She maintains the ability to introduce legislation that's bonkers and has no chance of getting passed but feeds her base," Gomez said. "I don't think she ever had an intention of really legislating so removing her [from committees], although punishment, is probably not as severe as it needs to be."

But it's still up for debate whether Greene's position was strengthened or weakened politically by her loss of committee assignments. Under different circumstances, committee shakeups have sparked consolidation along the fringes of the GOP. When a group of far-right Republicans had their assignments changed by party leadership in 2012, Schweikert lost an enviable spot on the Financial Services Committee. He said the Democratic action against Green could backfire.

"It's the law of unintended consequences," Schweikert said. "It was a moment like this that created the Freedom Caucus. Is this a moment where you've created someone who's going to have a national platform?"

• Marjorie Taylor Greene

CBS News reporter covering the House.

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The Marjorie Taylor Greene committee removal vote, explained

Eleven House Republicans joined Democrats to take the conspiracy theory-promoting lawmaker off her committee assignments.

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Share All sharing options for: The Marjorie Taylor Greene committee removal vote, explained

House Republicans were forced to go on the record Thursday evening about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) when the lower chamber voted on partisan lines to remove her from her two committee assignments.

The vote comes after days of back-and-forth between party leaders, as Democrats have pushed for consequences for the first-term representative, who has supported or suggested , in no particular order: the QAnon conspiracy theory; Parkland and 9/11 denial; the killing of Democratic leaders; and the idea that 2018 forest fires were started by a Jewish-controlled space laser.

The removal vote — which passed 230-199, with 11 Republicans joining the Democrats — could be a watershed moment for both parties, but particularly the GOP. House Republicans effectively weighed in on the future of their party, and whether it welcomes lawmakers like Greene and the supporters they bring.

Eleven Republicans voted YEA Fitzpatrick Gimenez Jacobs of New York Katko Kim of Calif Kinzinger MALLIOTAKIS Salazar Smith of NJ Upton Diaz-Balart — Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) February 4, 2021

But it also could be a pivotal moment in the House’s institutional politics.

Disciplining members is a rare tactic, and practically unheard of for comments made before being elected. During debate, Republicans warned that Democrats were opening a “Pandora’s box” of majority tyranny, while Democrats maintained that Greene’s comments represent a uniquely unacceptable situation.

Going forward, both parties could have some control over whether it’s a one-off in Congress’s history or a signal of what’s to come.

Republicans are trying to unify two very contentious factions

The vote is another battle in the ongoing wrestling between the establishment wing of the Republican Party — represented by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who have sought to distance the party from former President Donald Trump and Greene — and the pro-Trump, conspiracy-embracing right flank, which includes QAnon supporters, election deniers, and a significant number of House Republicans .

In a closed meeting of House Republicans Tuesday night, Greene privately apologized for how her statements may have hurt fellow Republicans, stating that 9/11 and school shootings did happen and saying she embraced QAnon during a dark period of her life but has since moved forward. In a display of just how embedded she is in the House GOP, she received a standing ovation.

Of course, Greene is still fundraising off her controversies — she says she has raised $175,000 — and had yet to address the incidents publicly until speaking on the floor Thursday during debate over the resolution. She expressed “regret” over her posts supporting 9/11 and school shooting denial, but did not mention her previous anti-Semitic and raicst remarks or suggestions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be killed.

Greene also blamed tech companies for enforcing “cancel culture” by taking “teeny, tiny pieces of words that I’ve said, that you have said, that any of us, and portray us into something we’re not,” and said the media is “just as guilty as QAnon” in promoting lies.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the chair of the House Rules Committee, spoke with increasing exasperation as the debate went on, saying he had yet to hear an apology from Greene and expressed shock that such a weak explanation warranted a standing ovation from Republicans.

If @SpeakerPelosi was the minority leader, she would pull every identity politics trick in the book to defend her member. White, Woman, Wife, Mother, Christian, Conservative, Business Owner These are the reasons they don’t want me on Ed & Labor. It’s my identity & my values. — Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) February 3, 2021

Now, Republicans must weigh the pressures associated with the vote. On the one hand, establishment leaders have condemned Greene. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been hammering Republicans over Greene, already releasing ads in vulnerable Republican districts linking some moderates to the controversial representative.

“Do (House Republicans) want to be the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility, free markets, peace through strength, and pro-life, or do they want to be the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon?” Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the second-ranking Senate Republican, said on CNN .

On the other hand, Trump still wields enormous influence over the party and its base. He has reportedly embraced Greene , and she has explicitly tied herself to the former president, making a vote against her a potential repudiation of Trump and all he represents.

In the middle of it all is McCarthy, who tried to unify his caucus in that closed-door meeting, standing behind Cheney and Greene both. He has condemned Greene’s statements but taken no action against her.

In a statement condemning Greene’s anti-Semitic theories and embrace of violence, McCarthy picked a scapegoat he is betting his whole caucus can agree on: Democrats. And given that Republicans voted overwhelmingly to unsuccessfully keep Greene on her committees, it’s clear his gamble worked.

The institutional future of the House is at stake

Democrats say Greene’s comments are so egregious that it warrants taking such historic action, and that if Republicans had stepped up and taken care of it themselves — as both parties have previously done with errant members — the vote would be unnecessary. They are particularly bothered by Republican leadership’s decision to place her on the Education Committee, despite her comments about the Parkland shooting and harassment of survivor David Hogg.

But Republicans say Democrats are playing with procedural fire, opening the door to a tit-for-tat escalation where the majority party is free to punish members of the minority with whom they disagree.

“I understand that Marjorie’s comments have caused deep wounds to many, and as a result, I offered Majority Leader [Steny] Hoyer a path to lower the temperature and address these concerns,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Instead of coming together to do that, the Democrats are choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented step to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party.”

McCarthy’s comment is a warning shot to Democrats that if they pursue committee removal, Republicans could dictate minority assignments if they take the majority back in 2022. It also provides cover to House GOP members to say they are voting to support Greene purely to keep Democrats from abusing their power as the majority.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) embraced that argument speaking on the floor during debate.

“The matter we are faced with is bigger than any one individual member,” he said. “It’s about how we as an institution will continue to function in the future. I fear that if we open this particular Pandora’s box, we will not like what happens next.”

Asked whether she's concerned about the precedent being set with the Marjorie Taylor Greene vote, Pelosi responds: "No, not at all. If any of our members threatened the safety of other members, we'd be the first ones to take them off of a committee. That's it." — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 4, 2021

Both parties would have control over whether that becomes the case. It would be an active choice on the part of both Democrats and Republicans (next time they hold the majority) to target members of the other party.

Already, a group of House Republicans sponsored a retaliatory amendment to remove progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from her committee assignments. The move has no political chance in a Democratic House, but sends a clear, though disingenuous, message about punishing supposed “extremism.” As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp has written , comparing the most left-wing Democrats with Greene draws a false equivalency between embracing socialist policies seen in peer democracies and suggesting a cabal of Jews are creating natural disasters from outer space.

Democrats, for their part, say the action is uniquely inspired by the circumstances of a member encouraging violence against another member — a stance McGovern said was “not a radical idea” and only unprecedented in that Greene’s party refused to take action.

They were committed to imposing consequences on Greene, with some members even advocating for censure or expulsion.

“The party of Lincoln is becoming the party of violent conspiracy theories,” McGovern said during debate over the resolution. “And apparently the leaders of the Republican Party in the House, today, are not going to do a damn thing about it.”

How did we get here?

Thursday’s vote is the culmination of a week of negotiation between McCarthy and Hoyer since the newest batch of Greene scandals came to light.

In the fallout of the scandals last week, Democrats, including Pelosi , began speaking out against her — particularly after Republicans named her to the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Pressure mounted on McCarthy to take action after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) began creating the resolution to expel Greene from committees. His promise to meet with her was insufficient for House Democrats. On Monday, Hoyer gave McCarthy 72 hours to strip Greene of her committee assignments — as Republican leadership had eventually done with former Rep. Steve King for repeated white supremacist comments.

McCarthy called Hoyer with a counteroffer : He would move Greene from the Education Committee to a different committee if Democrats agreed to drop the resolution. Hoyer said no , and the Rules Committee moved forward with the resolution, voting to bring it to the floor.

Republican leadership discussed potential committee moves for Greene, but ultimately McCarthy decided to let it go to a vote , effectively signaling he — and the members he leads — would defend Greene’s place in the party.

The caucus also voted to keep Cheney in the leadership by a vote of 145-61-1 on a secret ballot, demonstrating the pull both wings of the party exert on members.

If Trump’s departure from the White House reignited the GOP civil war, McCarthy has made his position clear: The Republican tent is plenty big enough for his detractors — and for QAnon supporters and conspiracy theorists, too.

Correction : The House voted largely on partisan lines — with 11 Republicans joining Democrats — to strip Greene of her committee assignments Thursday evening. The fully partisan vote was earlier in the day to advance the resolution.

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House Democrats file resolution to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments

WASHINGTON — A group of House Democrats introduced a resolution Monday to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., from her two committee assignments as a consequence for her inflammatory and false statements.

The resolution, sponsored by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch, both of Florida, and Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, would remove Greene from the House Education & Labor Committee and the House Budget Committee.

The Rules Committee said it would consider the resolution on Wednesday afternoon, the first step in getting it to a vote on the floor.

Greene, a freshman congresswoman, came under scrutiny last week over past remarks, including ones suggesting that school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, were staged , as well as her claim that the 2018 California wildfires were started by "Jewish space lasers."

“Reducing the future harm that she can cause in Congress, and denying her a seat at committee tables where fact-based policies will be drafted, is both a suitable punishment and a proper restraint of her influence,” Wasserman Schultz said during a virtual news conference.

“If Republicans won't police their own, the House must step in,” she continued, adding that Greene could resign but noted that’s unlikely and the chances of expulsion are slim because it would require a two-thirds vote in the House.

Wasserman Schultz, whose district is near Parkland, said that if Greene "cannot be entrusted to make education and budget policy" if she is unwilling to accept the reality of mass school shootings.

Deutch represents Parkland and said during the news conference that this is a “line-in-the-sand moment for the Republican Party” and that “the question, quite simply, is whether they will draw the line when a member of the Republican caucus moves far beyond political rhetoric and into what is extremely dangerous misinformation, deeply offensive harassment and the refusal to acknowledge truth."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, lambasted Greene in a statement later Monday.

"Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country," he said. "Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party."

Both of Florida's Republican senators have also criticized Greene's Parkland remarks, with Sen. Marco Rubio saying last week that "anyone suggesting it was fake is either deranged or a sadist.” A spokesman for Sen. Rick Scott said Monday that her comments are "disgusting and wrong."

While Greene has not apologized for her previous remarks, she has made an effort to walk them back in recent days. Linda Beigel Schulman, whose son, Scott Beigel, was one of 17 people killed in the Parkland attack, told MSNBC on Sunday that she'd spoken to Greene, and the congresswoman told her that despite her earlier comments, she does not believe the Parkland or Sandy Hook shootings were false flag events or that they had been staged.

In an interview with OAN on Monday, Greene defended a video that showed her harassing Parkland survivor David Hogg, but said the shootings "are not fake, and it’s terrible the loss that these families go through and their friends as well."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is expected to speak to Greene this week, but it’s unclear if the party will take any action against her. A source told NBC News that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke with McCarthy on Monday to tell him he needed to take action on Greene.

"It is my hope and expectation that Republicans will do the right thing and hold Rep. Greene accountable, and we will not need to consider this resolution," Hoyer said in a statement Monday. "But we are prepared to do so if necessary."

Greene later Monday lashed out at Democrats over the effort.

If Democrats remove me from my committees, I can assure them that the precedent they are setting will be used extensively against members on their side once we regain the majority after the 2022 elections. And we will regain the majority, make no mistake about that. — Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 1, 2021

In the OAN interview , Greene pointed to one Republican who is in her corner - former President Donald Trump, who she said she plans to visit "soon." "Great news is, he supports me 100 percent, and I've always supported him," she said.

Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.

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House rejects Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s effort to remove Speaker Mike Johnson from office

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried and failed in sudden action Wednesday to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos.

The US House has quickly rejected an effort to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker in a bipartisan vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called an effort to oust him from his speakership by hardline Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘a misguided effort’ following an overwhelming 359-43 vote in his favor.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference amid threats that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, is threatening to oust Johnson from his leadership post, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., leaves a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., whom she has vowed to remove from his leadership post, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, heads to a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Rep. Good has criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for continuing her push to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his position. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., leaves a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks to reporters after she tried and failed to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tried and failed in sudden action Wednesday to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson , her long-shot effort swiftly and resoundingly rejected by Democrats and Republicans tired of the political chaos.

One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.

Greene criticized Johnson’s leadership as “pathetic, weak and unacceptable.”

After Greene triggered the vote on her motion to vacate the speaker from his office, Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise quickly countered by calling first for a vote to table it.

An overwhelming majority, 359-43, kept Johnson in his job, for now.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, and I’ve made clear here every day, I intend to do my job,” Johnson said afterward. “And I’ll let the chips fall where they may. In my view, that is leadership.”

It’s the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have worked to oust their own speaker, an unheard of level of party turmoil with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.

The tally shows the strengths but also the stark limits of Johnson’s hold on the gavel, and the risks ahead for any Republican trying to lead the GOP in the Trump era. Without Democratic help, Johnson would have certainly faced a more dismal outcome.

All told, 11 Republicans voted to proceed with Greene’s effort, more than it took to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall, a first in U.S. history. And the threat still lingers — any single lawmaker can call up the motion to vacate the speaker.

Johnson said he hoped it “is the end of the personality politics.”

As Greene pressed ahead with the snap vote despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels, including Trump, GOP lawmakers filtered towards Johnson, giving him pats on the back and grasping his shoulder to assure him of their support.

The Georgia Republican had vowed weeks ago she would force a vote on the motion to vacate the Republican speaker if he dared to advance a foreign aid package for Ukraine, which was overwhelmingly approved late last month and signed into law.

But in recent days it seemed her effort had cooled, as she and Johnson met repeatedly for a potential resolution.

Johnson of Louisiana marched on, saying he had been willing to take the risk to approve the foreign aid, believing it was important for the U.S. to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and explaining he wanted to be on the “right side of history .”

In a highly unusual move, the speaker received a boost from Democrats led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, whose leadership team had said it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP turmoil and vote to table Greene’s resolution — almost ensuring Johnson’s job is saved, for now.

“Our decision to stop Marjorie Taylor Greene from plunging the country into further chaos is rooted in our commitment to solve problems,” Jeffries said after the vote.

Trump had also weighed in after Johnson trekked to Mar-a-Lago last month for support, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee giving the speaker his nod of approval . And Trump’s hand-picked leader at the Republican National Committee urged House Republicans off the move.

Ahead of House voting, Trump said on social media, “I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene,” but he said Republicans need to be fighting now to defeat Democrats in the November election. He urged Republicans to table Greene’s motion.

“At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time,” Trump said, to oust the speaker.

The move now poses its own political risks for Greene, a high-profile provocateur who has moved to the forefront of the party with her own massive following and proximity to Trump.

Greene was determined to force her colleagues to be on the record with their vote – putting them in the politically uncomfortable position of backing the speaker and seen as joining forces with Democrats to save him.

“I’m proud of what I did today,” Greene said afterward on the Capitol steps.

While reporters and camera crews crowded around Greene and ally Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a group of other Republicans gathered on the steps trying to shift the attention away from her and make their own views known.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said of those trying to remove the speaker, “They’re pretty good at getting attention, but they have not been recognized for their ability to get things done.”

He said if they keep pushing to oust the speaker, “I think you can expect more of the same: Failure.”

Reps. Carlos Giménez, a Florida Republican, said of Greene: “She doesn’t represent the Republican Party. I’m tired of of this being the face or the voice of the party and getting attention. That’s all she wants, is the attention.”

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., called for Greene and Massie to be punished for their actions.

Had Democrats not taken the unusual move to help, the vote would most likely have ended differently for Johnson who holds one of the slimmest majorities in the House in modern times, with no votes to spare.

Last year, the House chamber was hurled into chaos when eight Republicans voted to remove McCarthy from the speaker’s office and Democrats declined to help save him.

Ousting McCarthy resulted in a nearly monthlong search for a new GOP leader, bringing the chamber to a standstill with an episode Republicans wanted to avoid ahead of the November election.

Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Michelle Price and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

Marjorie Taylor Greene dares Mike Johnson to kick her off committees again: 'Badge of honor'

• House Speaker Mike Johnson might start cracking down on Republicans who defy him.
• That could include removing lawmakers from their committee assignments.
• MTG, who's forcing a vote to try to oust Johnson this week, doesn't seem to mind.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is daring House Speaker Mike Johnson to kick her off of her committees again.

"Being kicked off committees is nothing new for me," the Georgia Republican wrote in a post on X. "Badge of honor. Don't threaten me with a good time."

Speaker Mike Johnson is talking about kicking Republican members off of committees if we vote against his rules/bills. This comes after he’s serving Chuck Schumer and Biden’s every single wish and passing major bills with Democrats and not the majority of Republicans! It’s not… — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) May 6, 2024

Her Monday morning missive may have come in response to reporting from Punchbowl News indicating that Johnson is open to kicking Republicans off of their committees if they vote against certain procedural votes that usually pass on party lines — something that hard-right members of the conference have increasingly done in the last 16 months in order to protest party leadership.

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A person familiar with Johnson's remarks told Business Insider that they were hypothetical and referred to changes that House Republicans may make under the next Congress, rather than in the immediate future.

Additionally, Johnson can't remove Greene or any other member — or change the rules of the House — unilaterally and would need to hold a House-wide vote on the matter.

But the Georgia congressman's comments illustrate the degree to which she's returned to her roots as an outside agitator, rather than a sober-minded legislator.

Greene was barred from serving on committees by House Democrats at the beginning of her first term, owing to her past espousal of violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories, only for Republicans to place her on committees when they took over.

Greene is poised to force a vote on ousting Johnson this week — though it's almost certain to fail, given House Democratic leaders' vow to protect him from Greene's effort.

Just two other Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona — have signed onto Greene's motion to vacate. Most other Republicans have argued that whatever their concerns are with Johnson's leadership, now is not the time to plunge the House back into chaos.

Watch: Speaker of the House finally elected, ending three weeks of leaderless chaos

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Fresh Off Defeat in Speaker Fight, Greene Relishes the Chaos She Wrought

The hard-right congresswoman from Georgia failed spectacularly in her bid to depose Speaker Mike Johnson. But for a figure who sees her power in creating chaos, the loss was the point.

By Annie Karni

Reporting from the Capitol

As Republicans and Democrats booed her loudly Wednesday when she called a snap vote on the House floor to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, paused briefly to narrate the drama to viewers back home.

“This is the uniparty, for the American people watching,” Ms. Greene sneered, peering over her glasses at her colleagues like a disappointed schoolteacher.

Ms. Greene went on to take her shot at Mr. Johnson and miss, an outcome that she knew was a certainty. The vote to kill her attempt to remove him was an overwhelming 359 to 43 — with all but 39 Democrats joining Republicans to block her and rescue the G.O.P. speaker.

The move buoyed Mr. Johnson, confirming his status as the leader of an unlikely bipartisan governing coalition in the House that Ms. Greene considers the ultimate enemy. And it isolated Ms. Greene on Capitol Hill, putting her back where she was when she arrived in Washington three years ago: a provocateur and subject of derision who appears to revel in causing huge headaches for her colleagues .

“Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress,” Mr. Johnson said after the vote.

The word “hopefully” was doing a lot of work.

If Ms. Greene’s goals in Congress were to chair a powerful committee or to build up political capital to drive major policy initiatives — or if she had to worry about drawing a political challenger — this all would constitute a major problem for her. But those have never been the incentives that have driven the gentle lady from Georgia, whose congressional career has been defined by delighting her base and stoking anger on the right more than legislative achievement or political pragmatism.

Ms. Greene hails from a blood-red district where 68 percent of voters supported former President Donald J. Trump in 2020, allowing her to operate with relative impunity in Congress, without fear of a challenge from the right or left. She has further insulated herself politically by donating vast sums to electing Republicans to the House, quietly backing her colleagues even as she picks fights many of them would rather avoid.

So even as it became clear over the last week that she would fail in her quest to depose the speaker, Ms. Greene saw an upside in insisting on the exercise. A vote would offer concrete proof that Mr. Johnson had made himself beholden to the Democrats — a dynamic that has been clear for months as he has partnered with them to pass a host of major bills , including one to send aid to Ukraine — and that many Republicans were going along with what she regarded as a betrayal of the party’s principles.

“I’m thrilled with the whole thing,” Ms. Greene said in an interview on Thursday, sounding upbeat after her spectacular defeat. “Even the booing from both sides — I fully expected it.”

Even if Ms. Greene felt defeated or isolated, she would be exceedingly unlikely to acknowledge it. Her power derives in large part from her irrepressible attitude and her Trumpian instinct to double down rather than retreat in the face of failure.

On Wednesday evening, center-leaning Republicans tried to create as much distance from her as they could, fearful that association with her theatrics would alienate voters in their districts turned off by the seemingly endless chaos in the House.

“All she wants is attention,” said Representative Carlos Gimenez, Republican of Florida. “Today, we shut her down. Our entire conference said, ‘Enough is enough — we don’t need to hear from her anymore.’”

Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, referred repeatedly to Ms. Greene as “Moscow Marjorie” as she dangled her threat to oust the speaker. “Moscow Marjorie has clearly gone off the deep end,” he said on Wednesday.

But if Ms. Greene is now on an island in her party, she hasn’t been there long, and there’s likely a rescue boat en route to bring her back to the mainland. Shortly after arriving in Congress in 2021, she was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats — 11 Republicans voted with them — and was treated like a pariah by many in Washington. But over the past two years, Ms. Greene has been elevated by her party’s leaders, valued as a top adviser by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy , leaned on as a helpful fund-raiser by vulnerable Republicans and publicly hailed as a dream teammate by center-leaning lawmakers in her party.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene, she is so kind,” Representative Jen Kiggans, a vulnerable Republican from Virginia, said at an event last year before the ouster attempt. “She has been very nice to me.” Of Ms. Greene and other bomb throwers in her party, she said, “I have nothing bad or, you know, different to say about any of these people. They’re on my team, right? They are my teammates. We all want the same things.”

Mr. Trump, who had privately prodded Ms. Greene to move on rather than pursue her vendetta against the speaker and maneuvered to save Mr. Johnson, made it clear she remains on his good side despite ignoring his advice. He waited until the House had turned back her ouster attempt on Wednesday night to post a message on social media urging Republicans to block it. And before he praised Mr. Johnson, he wrote: “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.”

If that’s what abandonment by her party looks like, who needs an embrace?

“He’s not mad at me at all,” Ms. Greene said Thursday of the former president. “I talked to him plenty. He’s proud of me.”

Democrats, for their part, aren’t willing to let Republicans run away from Ms. Greene, the most famous Republican in the House, so quickly.

Missy Cotter Smasal, a Democrat challenging Ms. Kiggans in coastal Virginia, said that “when voters hear her comments calling Marjorie Taylor Greene a teammate, they are astounded and disgusted.”

Even though Ms. Kiggans voted to kill Ms. Greene’s effort on Wednesday night, Ms. Smasal moved quickly to try to use the mutiny attempt as a cudgel against her G.O.P. opponent.

“Jen Kiggans in office enables the chaos of Marjorie Taylor Greene,” she said on Thursday. A spokeswoman for Ms. Kiggans did not respond to a request for comment.

Justin Chermol, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: “When the Republicans lose their majority in November, it will be because the so-called moderates let Marjorie Taylor Greene be their party mascot.”

And Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, wasted little time in sending out a fund-raising email detailing how Ms. Greene “threatened to throw Congress further into chaos, crisis and confusion.”

Ms. Greene laughed off the idea that her actions would help elect Democrats this fall — the argument that everyone from Mr. Trump to Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, had used as they tried to discourage her from moving to oust the speaker.

“Republicans will turn out in droves for Trump,” she said. Using an acronym for “Republican in name only,” she continued, “Then they’re going to move down and see that RINO Republican they’ve elected time and time again — who didn’t impeach Biden, who didn’t do anything on the border — they’re going to see that guy and they’re going to cuss him under their breath and skip his name.”

Ms. Greene said Thursday that she didn’t care much whether she was isolated or not.

“If I’m on an island,” she said, “I’m doing exactly what I came here for.”

“I’m very comfortable ebbing and flowing with my party,” she added. “I can be their biggest cheerleader, supporter, defender, donor. I’ve given something like half a million to the National Republican Campaign Committee. I am a team player.”

Over the past two election cycles, Ms. Greene has sent a total of $725,000 to the party’s campaign arm, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance research group Open Secrets, a vast sum for a rank-and-file member like Ms. Greene.

In 2023, Ms. Greene gave the maximum contribution in more than a dozen vulnerable House Republican races, including to colleagues who represent districts President Biden won in 2020, such as Representatives David Schweikert of Arizona and Mike Garcia of California.

On Thursday morning, Ms. Greene made it clear she wasn’t finished tormenting Mr. Johnson just yet.

“Speaker Johnson is the Uniparty Speaker of the House!” she crowed on social media.

Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership. More about Annie Karni

A Divided Congress: Latest News and Analysis

Mike Johnson: The House speaker easily batted down an attempt  by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to oust him from his post, after Democrats linked arms with most Republicans  to block the motion.

Antisemitism Hearing: A Republican-led House committee turned its attention to three of the most politically liberal school districts  in the country, accusing them of tolerating antisemitism, but the district leaders pushed back forcefully .

Legalizing Marijuana: Senate Democrats reintroduced broad legislation to legalize cannabis on the federal level, a major policy shift with wide public support , but it is unlikely to be enacted this year ahead of November’s elections and in a divided government.

Ukraine Aid Bill: Some House Republicans who supported the aid package braced for a backlash, but they have encountered little resistance from G.O.P. voters , who have been far more willing to embrace it than right-wing lawmakers.

Censure Effort: Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, said that he was drafting a resolution to formally rebuke  Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, for comments in which she suggested that some Jewish students were “pro-genocide.”

For Marjorie Taylor Greene, getting booed by the House is no disincentive

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s desired outcomes aren’t the same as a traditional politician’s.

Imagine if you could go back in time to early 2020 and tell Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — then an unknown Donald Trump supporter who posted controversial commentary online — that four years later she would be standing inside the Capitol as both Democratic and Republican elected officials booed her.

It seems fair to assume that her reaction would not be disappointment.

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On Wednesday, that was the reception Greene received as she moved forward with an ultimately and predictably doomed attempt to have Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) removed from his position. It was doomed for a few reasons, including that the Republican caucus was not eager to repeat the upheaval that followed the successful ouster of Kevin McCarthy from that position last fall and that the Democratic caucus — which declined to save McCarthy — weren’t either. But Greene tried anyway. Boooo, her colleagues responded.

It was certainly not the first time Greene had been rebuked by the House. Back in early 2021, soon after she’d been sworn in for the first time, the Democratic majority stripped her of her committee assignments as punishment for social media activity in which Greene seemed to endorse violence against Democrats. Greene’s response? Indifference.

“Now, I have a lot of free time on my hands,” she said in response to being released from committee work, “which means I can talk to a whole lot more people all over this country, and I can talk to more people and make connections and build a huge amount of support.”

There’s certainly a “ don’t put in the newspaper that I’m mad ” element of this. But this was actually fairly predictive: Greene did spend her first two years in the House building a significant base of support. When Republicans retook the House in the 2022 midterms, she was a valuable addition to McCarthy’s bid for speaker — both because of her support within the Republican base and because of her leadership within the party’s fringe-right caucus.

What Greene recognizes, if only intuitively, is that it’s easier to generate and leverage power by stoking right-wing Americans than to try to effect policy. In the 2022 cycle, she was among the 10 House members who raised the most for their campaigns — despite having managed to get zero bills through the House . But she was a regular in the fringe-right media world and built a small but solid audience.

It has long been the case that members of the House need only to appeal to a relatively small constituency — their actual constituents — to ensure reelection. Greene and others have managed to use social media and targeted media appearances to carve out constituencies within the national electorate. Relatively small constituencies, but fervent ones. That gives them power. And railing against the institution of which she is a member is a way to reinforce that support. Boo away.

Over the course of her career, polling from YouGov conducted for the Economist shows that Greene has never had a majority of her own party view her favorably. But that’s in part because Republicans are consistently less likely to know enough about her to have an opinion. Among those who do, her favorability hovers around 60 percent.

Americans overall and Democrats are more likely to have an opinion about her. The reason is obvious: She’s a lightning rod.

If you look at how often Greene is mentioned on cable news networks, you see how this works. Since January 2021, CNN has mentioned her in at least 5,500 15-second segments. MSNBC has mentioned her in more than 8,000. Fox News, meanwhile, has mentioned her in just over 1,000.

She’s less newsworthy to a right-wing audience than a more liberal one.

This probably helps her in the moment. Greene’s effort to boot Johnson earned her a handful of mentions on Fox News in the past 24 hours. CNN and MSNBC mentioned her and her role in the effort 10 times more often.

It’s certainly not the case that Greene has no legislative ambitions. She isn’t solely in Washington to tear the place down. Pushing against her caucus’s leadership as she did this week will not make it easier for her to generate support for things she wants to accomplish. (Nor will the fact that one of her two successful legislative efforts to date was the quickly ignored impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.) (The other was naming a post office.) But to the extent that what she wants to accomplish is obstructive , all she needs is a clutch of allies in the narrowly divided chamber to achieve that goal.

And down the road, who knows? Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick? A Cabinet post in a Trump administration? Or a lucrative career along the Stephen K. Bannon track?

The sky’s the limit. Boos from Republican representatives are not.

Washington Monthly

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Bowed But Not Broken

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The threat far-right hysteric Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene issued six weeks ago to force a vote to oust mild-mannered House Speaker Mike Johnson from his chair ended with a whimper Tuesday afternoon. 

Early on, she had a chance to get it done in the more-chaos-the-merrier House Republican Conference that took down Kevin McCarthy after less than a year in the Speaker’s chain. But as the weeks went by, Greene kept screaming about Johnson being weak and outfoxed by Democrats. In the interim, other members had begun to lower their voices. Johnson quietly passed legislation, delaying a government shutdown, and sent a massive foreign aid package to the floor to send arms to Ukraine , knowing he would break the Hastert rule , the hearts of his nemesis Greene, and others in the Vladimir Putin caucus. But he did it, and it passed. Biden signed it. It’s the law, and no one was harmed making it. 

It’s not that Johnson did it on his own but that the bespectacled misfit did it at all. As Greene kept after him, Johnson got smart and trekked to Mar-a-Lago to check in with the boss, who complimented him for “doing a good job,” enough of a pat on the back to signal MAGA folks in Washington to hold their fire. Michael Whatley , Trump’s hand-picked replacement for Ronna McDaniel at the Republican National Committee, made a face-to-face appeal to Greene to cut it out. While the 49-year-old Georgian shrieked that she, not the accidental Speaker from Shreveport, Louisiana, was Trump’s person in Washington, it didn’t matter. Her usual allies in the House Freedom Caucus lost their stomach for another fight. Back in their districts over the weekend, there was little sentiment for another bloodbath so close to an election, and voters were less upset over the arms vote than expected. 

Monday, Greene met for over an hour with Johnson, her emotional opposite, in which he politely repeated his mantra that he was doing the best he could with such a slim majority. Her posse shrinking by the minute, she unleashed her usual righteous outrage in front of a bank of microphones, her special place. Another meeting Tuesday yielded none of the myriad concessions from Johnson she wrested from McCarthy for her support. She shelved her motion to vacate until another day.

That doesn’t mean Johnson can relax with a Diet Coke on the Speaker’s glorious balcony overlooking the Mall. The House is never far from a bloodbath as long as Greene’s around and other members who love a good defenestration. With her bottomless stomach for chaos and the fear she’ll be forgotten if she’s out of camera range for a news cycle, any compromise with Democrats can be grounds for another coup attempt. After all, it only takes a single member to move the motion to “vacate the chair,” a change in the rules she wrung out of McCarthy for dragging him across the finish line and the one that ironically did him in. 

MTG is going nowhere. As noted here, when McCarthy ascended to the chair after making innumerable side deals, the divorcée could live without a friend but not without an enemy. She famously discovered that Jewish Space Lasers cause wildfires and, advertently or not, expressed support for the assassination of Nancy Pelosi, whom she ridiculed for deploying “gazpacho” police , confusing Hitler’s secret force with a chilled tomato soup. She posted a picture of herself holding a gun next to images of The Squad . She visited January 6 insurrectionists in the D.C. jail whose rendition of the national anthem has a permanent spot on Trump’s playlist, to commiserate as if she were Amnesty International visiting the late Alexei Navalny in the Gulag. If she had been running the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, she promised her troops “they would have been armed” and her forces victorious.

Luckily, some semblance of peace is at hand because Johnson is the opposite of all that. He was not part of McCarthy’s Faustian bargain with Greene that fueled her rocket to fame, so grateful he gave her the honor of wielding the gavel as speaker pro tempore. He compensated for her being stripped of her committee assignments during her first term by awarding her committees a second term where she could go hard on Hunter Biden and easy on Putin. The latter seat on the Homeland Security Committee comes with MTG’s two favorite perks: a microphone and a security clearance.

That’s who McCarthy bequeathed to Johnson, along with every other headache that comes with herding cats. Speaker Johnson is a simpler man whose goal is not world domination but to serve as an interim speaker unless a private elevator, a car purring at the curb, and power he didn’t know existed go to his head. That’s unlikely. Johnson is a reluctant leader who realizes he was no one’s first choice and whose mission is to keep the clocks ticking and the wheels grinding, except some days when he pushes Putin back on his heels. Then he doesn’t act like it, but he’s a rock star. 

To restore order, Johnson had to pare the conference’s mean girl down to size. Like a kindergarten teacher isolating the class clown so he could peel off the other kids to resume coloring inside the lines for juice boxes, he treated her with a “Bless your heart” manner while proving to his normal members that he wasn’t another sap like McCarthy who saddled them with deals they didn’t sign on to and a weaponized Greene. He didn’t intend to use the job to climb the slippery pole of politics but to get the place running again. 

It’s too soon to say Johnson’s done that or that he’s a good speaker, but not to compare him to a good parent, disciplining his most unruly child, avoiding the limelight, eschewing secret deals, and, to the shock of cynical Democrats, doing what they consider the right thing in sending aid to Volodymyr Zelensky. 

It turned out that inside those attention-seeking outfits and a screeching voice crying out on solemn occasions, Greene retained the ability to self-soothe. The fireplug could hold her ground and force a vote, risking the support of Trump, MAGA, and her former posse, who’d grown tired of her antics and the too-wacky-to-govern vibe. Or she could be seen as normal for a moment and retreat. She chose the latter. Who says a firebrand from Milledgeville, Georgia, can’t grow in the job? 

With this latest craziness behind them, the GOP can get back to pretending not to watch full-time defendant Trump exposed as the perjury junkie and weird sexual operator he is, and maybe, get back to impeaching Biden appointees, demagoguing antisemitism on campuses, and torturing Hunter Biden rather than eating their own. 

Margaret Carlson

Margaret Carlson is a Washington Monthly Contributing Writer. Follow Margaret on Twitter @carlsonmargaret .

Marjorie Taylor Greene May Finally See Consequences for Shenanigans

R epresentative Marjorie Taylor Grenee’s spectacularly failed effort to strip Speaker Mike Johnson of the gavel has earned her a whole slew of new enemies.

The motion to vacate fell apart Wednesday after an overwhelming majority of the House voted 359-43 to keep Johnson in leadership. But the time-consuming and chaotic effort came at the cost of Greene’s already minimal popularity in the lower chamber, with Republicans insisting that the Georgia Republican see some level of consequence for leading another attempt to divide an already thin and historically unproductive majority.

“I would suggest a 80 percent rule. Oddly enough, what the Freedom Caucus has,” Representative Ryan Zinke told Politico . “If someone routinely violates the rules… then it should be the conference’s decision of whether he should be removed or suspended from committees.”

Other conservative lawmakers insinuated that Greene could lose her committee assignments for causing more intraparty bedlam. Greene currently sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the House Committee on Homeland Security, and the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, as well as several related subcommittees.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some changes on a couple of committees after watching that motion to table vote,” Representative Steve Womack told the outlet.

Representative Dusty Johnson, meanwhile, claimed that there was an “extremely high level of interest” by a “high number of members” to completely change the rules around how the House functions.

“I am interested in anything that would make the House run better,” Johnson told Politico.

But Greene was already prepared for the backlash, flagrantly brushing off the ramifications of her own behavior.

“They probably want to kick me off committees. They probably want a primary. I say, go ahead… That is absolutely their problem,” Greene told the publication after Wednesday’s vote.

Marjorie Taylor Greene committed to oust the House speaker a month ago: She still hasn't

WASHINGTON – When Marjorie Taylor Greene announced her plans to oust Mike Johnson from the speakership, the conservative agitator committed to follow through on her threats and call a vote on the speaker’s future.

But it’s been more than a month since then and Greene, R-Ga., has yet to force a House vote on removing Johnson, R-La., despite her repeated statements that she will do so – whenever that is. 

The long period of time that has elapsed between Greene announcing her plans until now – where she has not moved at all – highlights the political conundrum the second-term lawmaker has found herself in: Barely anyone on Capitol Hill is supportive of her efforts but if she pulls back her threats now, her credibility evaporates. 

Lawmakers have noticed and some say Greene has made a severe misstep just seven months after conservatives first pushed out Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the speakership and setting off a three-week scramble to find his replacement that meant a vacancy in the job that's second in the line of succession to the presidency.

“I don’t know the strategy behind her,” Rep. Mark Alford, R-Texas, told USA TODAY of Greene’s push to fire Johnson. “I know she’s frustrated ... I just don’t think that’s the way to go about getting the results you want, but that’s up to Marjorie.”

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“If she doesn’t (do it), I’ll tell you right now, I think she loses a lot of credibility in a lot of people’s eyes,” Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, said. “It’s like the boy who cried wolf, do it or don’t do it.”

Greene’s push “utterly collapsed,” Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., said. “She’s not influencing anything.”

Greene filed what is known as a “motion to vacate” against the speaker in March, a process that could forcibly remove Johnson from the speakership. But her effort appears to have gained much more pushback than Greene might have expected.

While it was unsurprising that the majority of House Republicans would stand by Johnson, ultraconservatives and House Democrats both also came out against Greene’s removal threat. 

Weary of starting another leadership crisis just six months before the 2024 elections, most hard-right lawmakers have said they would rather litigate a speaker fight in the next Congress. That strategy suggests Johnson would face a direct challenge to his speakership from an alternative candidate as early as January 2025, rather than a vote on ousting him smack in the middle of the current session.

“I cannot defend the speaker or his actions over the previous six months and I do think there will be a speaker contest in November that I don’t believe he will be able to win,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., told USA TODAY. Good, the chair of the conservative, far-right House Freedom Caucus, called the motion to vacate a “very foolish, self centered thing to do.”

And Democratic leadership has vowed to kill Greene’s effort if she ever calls it up for a vote. Not only that, but Donald Trump has defended the speaker and has attempted to tell Greene to back off, according to Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., a former Interior secretary during the Trump administration. Zinke said the former president “was in communication with Marjorie and advised her to focus on getting things done and not a distraction, removing the speaker.”

Republicans officials also voiced opposition to Greene's motion to vacate during last weekend's GOP donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. 

"We need to flip the Senate, and we need to expand our majority in the House. We're not going to do that if we're not unified," Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee, told NBC News .

Greene has still noted she could call up a vote to oust Johnson at any time, but she has yet to do so even though she said last week in a press conference she would be “absolutely calling it” and that she “can’t wait” to see lawmakers support Johnson. 

But on Monday, Greene, along with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who joined her campaign to oust Johnson, met with the speaker for two hours to outline a set of demands – which Massie characterized as “suggestions” – that could get her to cool it with the ouster threat. The two, along with Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., met with the speaker again on Tuesday for roughly an hour and a half.

Those demands are: a commitment for no further U.S. aid to Ukraine, a commitment to defund special counsel investigations that brought historic federal criminal charges against Trump, a pledge to bring legislation to the floor only with support of the majority of Republicans and automatic spending cuts if Congress can not pass a full set of individual spending bills to fund the government.

Greene did not offer a timeline on when she would like to see changes, saying on Tuesday it’s “pretty short.” There are no specific bills either that Greene outlined that could appease her. When pressed on how Johnson could possibly meet her demands, Greene responded to reporters that they “should go ask Mike Johnson how he’s gonna get this done. He’s speaker of the House.”

“Right now the ball is in Mike Johnson’s court,” Greene said.

Johnson, when told Greene wanted an answer quickly, seemed to roll his eyes and crack a smile: “We’re gonna process these ideas just like all ideas and all input from members.”

The ambiguity of Greene’s demands, and how they could be satisfied, has prompted speculation from members that the conservative rabble rouser is simply looking for an off-ramp to avoid a public defeat on the House floor after it became clear there is little support from anyone to remove the current speaker.

“Sleeves off your vest,” Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., told USA TODAY, saying Johnson wouldn’t be giving any real concessions to Greene, even if he did satisfy her. “Sometimes in negotiation, you gotta give sleeves off your vest.”

“It’s like a horrible syndicated TV series that just won’t come to an end,” Molinaro quipped of Greene’s threats to the speaker. But at least, he added, “it sounds like we’re in the final throes of cancellation and the season finale.”

Contributing: David Jackson

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Analysis of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green's effort to oust House Speaker Johnson

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with Republican strategist Scott Jennings about the challenge to House Speaker Mike Johnson from GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

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