Marjorie Taylor Greene escalates dispute with U.S House speaker

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, welcomed GOP lawmakers back to Capitol Hill on Tuesday with a very public broadside against her own party’s House speaker, setting out for fellow Republicans exactly why she has threatened to force a vote to get rid of Mike Johnson.

“I will not tolerate our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson serving the Democrats and the Biden administration and helping them achieve their policies that are destroying our country,” Greene wrote in a five-page letter sent to House GOP lawmakers.

Airing her grievances on issues such as aid to Ukraine and the details of a series of government funding bills approved last month by Congress, Greene denounced Johnson for compromising with Democrats on major legislation.

“He is throwing our own razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that elected him,” Greene wrote.

While Greene reminded her colleagues that she filed a motion to remove Johnson as speaker before Easter, the Georgia Republican did not say whether she would actually push for a House vote anytime soon.

There is no evidence that more than a handful of Republicans would support such a move, but that hasn’t stopped Greene’s attacks in what’s become an almost daily diatribe against Johnson.

“I will not tolerate this type of Republican ‘leadership,’ ” Greene wrote in her letter.

On Monday, Greene mocked her own leadership for scheduling a vote this week on a nonbinding resolution denouncing President Joe Biden’s border security policies, calling for action that actually forces policy changes.

“I mean, why would our Republican Speaker of the House dare to actually stop Biden’s border policies?!” Greene tweeted. “No, let’s just condemn. Again. For the 10th time or something like that.”

Greene’s very public distress signal comes as House Republicans are already gearing up for a divisive debate this week on foreign intelligence surveillance laws as Johnson tries to balance warring factions within the GOP.

While there is concern among House Republicans about some of the speaker’s decisions in recent months, Greene has found little public support for her crusade against Johnson, who was only elected to the post back in October, after Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

Democrats again find themselves surprised by the open disarray and dysfunction among House Republicans, which they see as part political theater and part performative art.

“Pretending to fire the speaker of the House has become just another political battle for the right flank to lose on purpose in order to attract media attention,” said U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-N.C.

Some Democrats have gone as far to say that if Greene does force a vote to oust Johnson, they will vote to save the speaker from suffering the same fate as McCarthy.

Like almost all her colleagues in Congress, fellow Georgia Republicans have said almost nothing about Greene’s attacks on Johnson.

One former Georgia Republican in Congress said Greene is making a mistake by targeting the speaker.

“I urge Marjorie Taylor Greene to not move forward with this,” former Rep. Jody Hice said in an interview with the Family Research Council. “I see no value in this whatsoever.”