Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stunned House lawmakers Friday by filing a motion to vacate against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a source told The Post.
Greene (R-Ga.) made the move as the House finalized passage of a partial government spending bill to avert a looming midnight shutdown — and fewer than six months after House Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for passing an earlier federal funding measure.
Greene, 49, told reporters on the steps of the US Capitol following the vote that the latest funding bill was “a complete betrayal of all of our values” but declining to say whether she had “a timeline” for an eventual vote on Johnson’s ouster.
“I have support on this from others in my conference,” she claimed, declining to say the exact number. “I’m not introducing this to throw the House into chaos — committees will continue doing their work, investigations will continue.”
“We need a speaker of the House that knows how to negotiate, knows how to walk in the room, knows how to hold the line and knows how to defend ‘America First’ and the values and the policies that President Trump will bring,” she added.
“Speaker Johnson always listens to the concerns of members, but is focused on governing,” said Raj Shah, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff. “He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense and demonstrates how we’ll grow our majority.”
The motion to declare the chair vacant is not under privilege, meaning it can’t be called at the earliest until after the House returns from its spring recess April 9.
“It’s in the hopper, which means it may not necessarily be pulled out,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who voted against the spending bill, told The Post as the chamber adjourned.
But Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) told The Post he wasn’t sure there would even be enough members to support the motion when the House comes back in session.
“It seems like a suicide mission,” he said.
Ogles and other hardline House Republicans erupted at Johnson for dropping the 1,012-page bill in the early hours of Thursday morning — less than 48 hours before the partial government shutdown on March 22 — but had played coy when asked by the press whether the measure would prompt the speaker’s ouster.
Several — including Staten Island Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis — said they could not support legislation that ignored the crisis at the US-Mexico border, where millions of migrants have illegally entered the country since President Biden took office.
“I will be voting NO on today’s appropriations package,” Malliotakis (R-NY) said on X. “I have a real problem with giving the Biden Administration more money without changes to his border policy.”
“I will not fund his reckless agenda that includes the transportation & housing of more illegal immigrants, including criminals, in New York City & across America,” she added.
Eight Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) voted with every House Democrat to oust McCarthy on Oct. 3 and the former speaker resigned from Congress two months later.
“If I was Leader Jeffries, or any of the Democrats, they should be very clear that they’re not going to participate in this,” Rockland and Putman County Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told reporters.
“The speaker walked into a very difficult situation as a result of the vacating of the chair with Kevin McCarthy and has done a good job negotiating on behalf of the conference while still being undermined by people on the right who fail to realize that their conduct has actually weakened the hand of the conference.”
Newly elected Long Island and Queens Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who replaced the expelled George Santos last month, was the first Democrat to pledge he would vote to keep Johnson in place.
“It’s absurd. He’s getting kicked out for doing the right thing: keeping the government open,” Suozzi told CNN. “It has two-thirds support of the Congress and the idea that he would be kicked out by these jokers is absurd.”
After winning the gavel in October, Johnson had promised his conference at least 72 hours to review legislation before holding a floor vote but Lawler said that only applied for bills not considered under a suspension of the rules, as Friday’s funding bill was.
“This is lunacy,” Lawler said. “[Greene] wants to fight within her conference. I don’t really see what that gets anybody. At the end of the day, she supported Kevin McCarthy. She knows firsthand the level of destruction that Matt Gaetz and others caused by vacating the chair.”
“I don’t see how she could possibly think this will benefit anyone — or the American people,” he added. “The Democrats went along with Matt Gaetz. They should make it very clear that they’re not going to go along with Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) told The Post that being a lawmaker “wasn’t about the press,” nodding his head up toward the steps where Greene was surrounded by a scrum of Hill reporters.
“Have I voted against every CR and every omnibus? Yes, I have,” McCormick said, including the vote that was just held. “But I still have a job to get done.”
“I will not use my position in government as a weapon against my own team. You can’t tackle the quarterback and move the ball simultaneously,” he added. “Can you name a more conservative speaker than we have right now?”