Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is set to meet with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) late Wednesday morning, as the Georgia Republican threatens to force a vote on ousting the GOP leader — a move Johnson warned would cause “chaos in the House.”
The conversation will mark the first time the two have spoken since Greene filed a motion to vacate against Johnson late last month — the pair only exchanged text messages over the two-week Easter recess. They were slated to speak Friday, but that plan fell through, a source familiar told The Hill.
“Marjorie and I are going to visit later today, and look forward to the conversation. And I’m not gonna discuss it anymore, discuss it with you all; I’ll discuss it with her,” Johnson said Wednesday.
“She’s a colleague. I’ve always considered her a friend,” Johnson added of Greene. “Marjorie and I don’t disagree, I don’t think, on any matter of philosophy. We’re both conservatives, you know. But we do disagree sometimes on strategy and with regard to what we put on the floor and when and those things.”
Greene also confirmed the scheduled meeting, telling reporters she would meet with Johnson at 11:45 a.m. EDT.
The conversation comes as Greene has upped her criticism against Johnson amid frustrations over his handling of government funding, Ukraine aid and the reauthorization of the U.S.’s warrantless surveillance powers.
On Tuesday, she sent a five-page letter to House Republicans laying out a list of grievances she has against the Speaker and accusing him of performing a “complete and total surrender” to the Democrats’ agenda.
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of Republican ‘leadership,’” she wrote.
Greene has not disclosed when she plans to force a vote on her motion to vacate, but said Johnson’s next steps on Ukraine aid and reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will play into her thought process.
“How he handles the FISA process and how he handles funding Ukraine is going to tell our entire conference how to handle the motion to vacate,” Greene told reporters Wednesday.
But she said Johnson does not have support from the House GOP conference.
“It’s pretty clear and obvious and being whispered among the conference, Mike Johnson does not have the support of the conference,” she said.
Johnson responded to Greene’s motion to vacate effort Wednesday morning, warning that an ouster vote would not help Republicans politically as they look to increase their majority in November.
“Nor does a motion to vacate help us in our regard either,” Johnson said of picking up seats in November. “It would be chaos in the House.”
Greene filed the motion to vacate against Johnson as the House was voting on a $1.2 trillion spending package that hard-line conservatives strongly opposed. They argued the legislation did not include enough spending cuts or conservative policy riders.
Johnson, however, defended his handling of the appropriations process, arguing that shutting down the government would have been harmful — both practically and politically — and noting the House GOP’s razor-thin majority.
“It doesn’t serve our interests, I didn’t think, to not fund the government and shut it down at this critical time because imagine a scenario where border patrol agents aren’t being paid, TSA agents aren’t being paid, flights start getting canceled, we’re not paying the troops, you know all the things that the government does would come to a grinding halt. That would put a lot of pressure on the American people, the American economy at a very desperate time,” he said.
“So that just wasn’t an option. And I don’t think that would be helpful to us from a political standpoint, for the Republican Party to continue to govern, to maintain, keep and then grow our majority in November. I thought that would’ve been a great hindrance to it, and so that wouldn’t be helpful,” he added.