Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green on Tuesday escalated her threat to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, distributing a scathing letter advocating for his removal and accusing Republicans of tolerance for his leadership.
In a five-page memo sent to her colleagues on Tuesday morning, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Green, a right-wing Republican from Georgia, attacked Mr. Johnson point by point. of his record as a speaker. She accused him of recklessly advancing President Biden’s agenda and squandering opportunities to advance the priorities of the Democratic Party.
Ms Green warned her colleagues they risked being out of touch with their constituents if they continued to accept what she called a “complete and total surrender” by Republicans under Mr Johnson.
The letter left little doubt that Ms. Green, who filed a resolution last month calling for Mr. Johnson’s removal but said it was just “a warning,” intends to follow through on her threat to call for a vote to oust him.
“If these actions by our congressional leader continue, then we are not the Republican Party — we are a one-party that wants to stay on the path of self-inflicted destruction,” he wrote. “I will not support or participate in any of this, and neither will the people we represent.”
Her heightened threat came at a difficult time for Mr Johnson, who has said he will soon unveil an emergency national security spending package that includes aid to Ukraine, which has angered the far-right. He also plans to hold a series of tough votes this week on legislation to renew a warrantless surveillance program that many in his party oppose.
In the letter, Ms. Greene noted the many occasions since Mr. Johnson took the gavel five months ago that he has negotiated with Democrats on major legislation — including several federal bills to avert a government shutdown and the annual defense bill to ensure US troops get a raise – and cut deals he called a betrayal of Republican values. His actions “have angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority,” he wrote.
And she condemned members of her own party, adding: “If we win the House this fall, it will only be because President Trump is on the ballot, not because we won it.”
Much of her criticism stemmed from Mr. Johnson’s decision last month to advance a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending bill — a bill passed with a majority of Republicans voting against it — that prompted Ms. Green to file the resolution calling for Mr. Johnson’s removal.
He said at the time that the move was “more of a warning than a pink slip”, raising questions about whether he planned to call for an early vote to oust Mr Johnson or was simply seeking the massive attention that came with the threat. The House then left Washington for a two-week recess.
Mr Johnson hoped the break would help ease tensions that threatened to keep him on the job. In interviews, she referred to Ms. Green as a friend. He said he shared her frustration about the spending legislation and that they had texted and planned to meet when they returned to Washington.
Now the House is back and Ms Green is making it clear that she will not go down easily.
Fully funding Biden’s abortion, trans agenda, climate agenda, foreign wars and border crisis does not ‘ensure freedom, opportunity and safety for all Americans,’” he wrote, citing a list of top priorities of Mr. Johnson after receiving Thesis.
He also blamed Mr. Johnson for failing to pay back what he called a “witch hunt” by Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Mr. Trump for trying to sway the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents. Taken together, he said, these would amount to a “death sentence” for Mr Trump.
“They want him dead,” Ms. Green said of the Democrats, “and the power of our appropriations could have stopped it, but President Johnson didn’t even try.”
(It is inconceivable that Democrats would have agreed to cut spending on Mr. Smith’s prosecutions, or that Mr. Biden would have signed legislation doing so.)
On Monday night, Ms. Green also made her case against Mr. Johnson to voters at a town hall in Tunnel Hill, Ga. “I am angry; Yes,” she said. “My question is, are you angry?”
Ms. Green’s letter appeared to be aimed at getting the speaker to squirm over the Ukraine aid bill, which he has agonized over — first refusing to take it up, but more recently bowing to the pleas of Mr. Biden, the Democrat , other Republicans and world leaders. So.
“Mike Johnson is publicly saying that funding Ukraine is now his top priority when less than seven months ago he was against it,” Ms Green wrote. “The American people disagree — they think our border is the only border worth fighting for, and I agree with them.”
For months, Ms. Green has called Ukraine’s move a “red line” to remove the speaker. Last week, in an interview with right-wing media anchor Tucker Carlson, Ms. Green wondered aloud whether Mr. Johnson was being blackmailed into bringing it up, “because he’s completely out of touch with what we want.”
Ms Green, an agitator who formed an unlikely alliance with former President Kevin McCarthy that got her kicked out of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, was referred to in the letter as a “team player”, but one she cannot support more the current leadership if it continues on its current trajectory.
He scoffed at the idea of the need for compromise at a time of divided government.
“Even with our thin Republican majority, we could have at least secured the border, as it is the No. 1 issue in the country and is the issue causing Biden to lose in polls after polls,” Ms. Green wrote. . “Nothing says shooting in our tent like a Republican speaker of the House getting his members to vote to fund abortions to pay our military.”
It is unclear whether Ms Green’s arguments will convince her colleagues, including some other far-right members who have expressed skepticism about a second move to remove a speaker. Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who led the charge to oust Mr. McCarthy, said that when he made his move in October, “I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democratic speaker.” With the Republican majority in the House dwindling to one precarious vote since then, Mr Gaetz said: “I couldn’t make that promise again today.”
In her letter, Ms. Green said that will not happen if more Republicans withdraw and the party loses its majority, or if Republicans vote for Representative Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York and the minority leader.
