Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the rump leader of the House, has decided to sit on her threat to try to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson—for the time being. She is not, however, relenting on her demands, while Johnson maintains he is not negotiating with her.
So far, Greene doesn’t have much support from the GOP’s hard-liners on kicking out Johnson, but they are tacitly on board with her in going scorched earth—again—on government funding this fall.
“We will see. … Right now, the ball is in Johnson’s court,” Greene told reporters after her second meeting with him Tuesday, indicating that she wouldn’t follow through on her promise to force the vote on his ouster this week.
Greene and her co-conspirator Rep. Thomas Massie have laid out their demands, including eliminating funding for Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump, ceasing aid to Ukraine, and across-the-board 1% federal spending cuts. That’s music to the Freedom Caucus’s ears.
It also has the Senate GOP conference fuming. They’ve pointed out that none of these demands would pass in the Senate, and that the cuts she’s trying to make would hit the Defense Department especially hard.
“Right now, [Johnson’s] got a job to do. Who knows what in the future may or may not be needed or necessary?” GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told The Hill. “I wouldn’t make any commitments about what he’s going to move on the floor or not move on the floor in response to demands she’s making.”
“I don’t think Speaker Johnson needs to make any commitments to Greene. I think she’s marginalizing herself and becoming a nonissue,” GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told The Hill.
That’s just the kind of talk that fuels Greene and the Freedom Caucus, who are already drawing their battle lines on next fiscal year’s funding. Greene and the hard-liners can’t win, and they know that. But that won’t stop them from wreaking havoc this fall by fighting to make cuts and forcing a repeat of this year’s funding debacle—with the fiscal year half over before they finally got it done. They are trying to postpone any new funding agreement until next year, setting it up for a potential return of Trump.
That starts with not agreeing on any short-term government funding bill that expires before the end of the year.
“The [continuing resolution] should be into next year, not into the lame duck,” GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said. “Because you want to give the new president a chance to weigh in on what we spend and where we spend it.”
“We know there’s going to be a CR. I think that CR will go into [2025],” GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas added. “I think you shouldn’t drop it into a lame duck, because frankly nothing good happens for America in a lame duck.”
But that sentiment is getting pushback from the non-maniac Republicans.
Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, calls it bunk.
“That’s a mistake,” he told Politico. “Whoever loses in the Senate will still have the filibuster. And so the idea that you’re gonna get a dramatically better deal is not true…. And if we win the presidency—and I think we will—I don’t think President Trump should have to worry about the last Congress.”
There’s bipartisan agreement that Greene and the hard-liners’ stunts are ridiculous. Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, succinctly summed up Greene and team.
“Eh, they say lots of stuff … It’s fantasy Congress with these guys,” he said.
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is fed up with the House hijinks, particularly Greene’s.
“You know what? She’s one person out of a body of 435. You tell me how one person can literally hold the entire House,” she said. “Am I missing something?”
What she’s missing is the part where Johnson is allowing it—and potentially encouraging it—by continuing to give Greene and Massie private meetings. He’s showing weakness that will only harden Greene and her cohorts’ stance.
Unless and until Johnson steps up and shuts Greene down, the GOP extremists will keep control.
