By Suzanne Bowdey
For all of the emotional hostage-taking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has engaged in the last several weeks, the actual coup was a bit underwhelming. If there was a dramatic end to her mission to oust the speaker, it was that both parties united to call her bluff. The late Wednesday night offensive failed, leading almost everyone but a few malcontents to ask: Can we move on now?
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who outlasted his tormenters with the help of Democrats, certainly hopes so. Despite hours of meetings with Greene and her fellow agitator, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the Louisiana leader called it “unfortunate” that she pulled the trigger on the motion to vacate anyway. “Look, I appreciate the overwhelming show of confidence by my colleagues to defeat that misguided effort,” Johnson told “Fox and Friends” the morning after. But “here’s what I have to do every day,” the speaker said. “I have to do my job. I have to do what I know to be right.”
As co-host Steve Doocy put it (mildly), “These are very complicated times to be speaker.” Johnson’s predecessor Kevin McCarthy can attest to that. “But what happened to him didn’t happen to you,” Doocy pointed out. “Democrats didn’t help him. They helped you. Why?”
Several members of Joe Biden’s party answered that question themselves in interviews after the failed vote. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), one of the Democrats who’s been surprisingly complimentary of Johnson, told Axios that McCarthy “never kept his word.” He wasn’t “trusted,” she said. Another hard-line leftist, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) agreed. “McCarthy was dishonest. [Johnson] has not been dishonest.”
While not everyone had such a charitable opinion of the 52-year-old, they did seem to agree that this speaker negotiates in good faith. “McCarthy was both incompetent and dishonest,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) told reporters. “Johnson is just incompetent.”
If you ask Johnson, Democrats came to the rescue — not because of him, necessarily — but because of the challenges the country faces. “They see exactly what we see and the American people see. These are dangerous times,” he insisted on Fox. “And the country desperately needs a functioning Congress. We can’t afford the risk of shutting the House down, which is literally what happened last time. Imagine if we close the House in the middle of hot wars around the globe, when China could move on Taiwan. Iran could fire a nuke at Israel. I mean, anything could happen right now. And we need to be working here every day. The chaos and confusion do nothing but diminish our chances to save this country and hurt our cause.”
In his own party, the urgency of sticking together before a critical election finally won out, leaving Greene — who was booed during her time on the floor — with just 10 Republican co-conspirators to move the motion forward. “This whole episode, this little tantrum of hers, is absurd and it does nothing to advance the conservative movement,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) complained. “All it does is undermine the House Republican majority, which the American people elected for those that are complaining about the fact that we don’t have border security that is a result of their inability to work as a conference, as a team to give the speaker the most leverage in negotiations.”
Thanks to the quick action of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), the vote to table Greene’s motion killed the two-day clock and made it possible for the chamber to vote on the threat immediately. As CNN host Jake Tapper so colorfully put it, “The motion to table is essentially [South Dakota Governor] Kristi Noem taking a shotgun to Cricket’s head. It’s the death of that effort.”
By a 359-43 vote, members sank the effort, leaving Greene in what Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) called “a very lonely place.” Even former President Trump, who admitted he “absolutely love[s]” the Georgia firebrand on social media, made it clear that “with a Majority of One … we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate. At some point, we very well may be, but this is not the time.”
“If we show DISUNITY,” Trump continued, “which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything! Mike Johnson is a good man who is trying very hard. I also wish certain things were done over the last period of two months, but we will get them done, together.”
In most people’s minds, the mere act of voting and clearing this away as a distraction was a relief in itself. Like most conservatives, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins hopes that “this will take the spotlight off of [Greene] and … the House will be able to move forward now with the work that needs to be done without this being a daily discussion item.”
In the meantime, Johnson promises, “we are fighting every single day to reverse all those terrible things … that President Biden’s done to the country. We have to keep the Republicans together, moving together as a team. We advance our conservative policies and principles as far as we can here every single day up the field, in spite of the fact that we have the smallest majority in U.S. history.”
The numbers are real, he wanted people to know. “We can’t get 100% of what we want. And sometimes a handful of my colleagues demand [things that are] just not possible right now. But we’re fighting. We’re going to get this job done. And I think that’s leadership — leadership in very difficult times.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
