Marjorie Taylor Greene has been threatening to upend Mike Johnson’s speakership for over a month now. But she has been unable to turn internal frustration with the Louisiana Republican into much concrete support for a motion to vacate, with everyone from Matt Gaetz—the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster—to party leader Donald Trump seemingly keen to avoid an election-year throwdown over the gavel. Now, with little apparent leverage and her standing in Trumpworld at risk, Greene seems to be looking for a way out.
On Monday, after meeting for a “discussion” with the speaker—who incensed her after passing a his $95 million foreign aid package, which included funding for Ukraine—Greene now appears to be shifting her her aims from ousting him in a vote this week to finding “ways to move forward.” “I have been patient,” she said after the meeting, “I have been diligent. I have been steady. And I have been focused on the facts.”
Still, Greene has not officially backed off her motion to vacate Mike. And, as Politico notes, she is still seeking a series of concessions from him—including a promise not to send any additional money to Ukraine and to defund special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump. The latter would seem especially unrealistic in a divided House, where Democrats are indicating they are willing to throw Johnson a lifeline—leaving Greene, who has the support only of fellow hardliners Paul Gosar and Thomas Massie, little leverage with which to extract her demands.
“I understand the frustration,” Johnson told reporters after their meeting Monday. “I share it.” But with the “smallest majority in U.S. history,” he said, “it makes it very difficult for us…[to] throw touchdown passes on every single play.”
It’s not impossible that Greene—who meets again with Johnson Tuesday—could still succeed with her ouster push, especially if the speaker, like McCarthy before him, betrays the trust of the Democrats he needs to bail him out. But for now, it seems that she’s losing her game of chicken with Johnson—and possibly her place in Trump’s orbit, if she isn’t careful. “She’s not acting in the best interests of President Trump,” Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, himself a critic of Johnson, said Sunday on NewsNation. “She’s always been about herself primarily.”