After weeks of speculation, far-right Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday that she will force a vote to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., from his leadership position next week.
The move comes one day after Democratic leadership said they would kill the effort to oust the Louisiana Republican, meaning that the effort is all but assured to fail in the narrowly divided chamber.
"I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may and so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate, absolutely calling it," Greene said at a press conference outside of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday morning, adding: "I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican Speaker and have to go home to their primaries and have to run for Congress again.”
Greene filed her motion last month after Johnson put forward a bill to fund the government and avert a shutdown. On Wednesday, she blasted Johnson as a member of the "uniparty" -- a term used among hardline Republicans to condemn members of their own party who work across the aisle with Democrats -- and even put a "Make Ukraine Great Again" hat on a photo of Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
"Now we have Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats coming out, embracing Mike Johnson with a warm hug and a big wet sloppy kiss," she said. "And they are ready: they have endorsed him, they are ready to support him as speaker. They want to keep it going, keep the band together. Why? Because Mike Johnson is giving them everything they want.”
In the weeks since Greene filed her motion, two other hardline Republican lawmakers -- Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar -- have joined Greene's effort, citing the agreements Johnson has negotiated on foreign aid, federal spending and government surveillance.
But Republicans have largely appeared lukewarm on the prospect of plunging the House into the chaos that ensued last year after a group of GOP lawmakers rebelled against then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and forced his ouster over a deal he cut with Democrats and President Joe Biden to avert a shutdown.
Democrats had previously indicated that they could come to Johnson's rescue should the Louisiana Republican put forward a long-stalled bill to provide aid to Ukraine. Given the House's passage of the bill earlier this month and signature into law by President Biden after quick Senate action, their intervention appeared all but assured.
On Tuesday, House Democratic leadership announced they would intervene to kill Greene's measure when put forward for a vote.
“We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair,” Leader Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said in a statement. "If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”
"At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction," the Democratic leaders wrote in their statement.
In a press conference shortly after the release of the statement announcing the decision, Aguilar argued there was a “distinction” between voting in favor of Johnson and voting to table the motion to oust him.
“None of the discussion that we had in caucus was about saving Mike Johnson,” Aguilar told reporters. “The underlying motion to vacate was not discussed, the motion to table was.”
Aguilar noted that each member of the House Democratic caucus should “vote their district and their conscience.”
On Wednesday, Jeffries said that House Republicans "have visited chaos, dysfunction and extremism on the American people" since they took over the lower chamber of Congress in January of last year.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene is the star of the show," he said. "The show is called 'Republicans Gone Wild.' It is undermining the well-being of the American people and preventing us from delivering real and meaningful results on the issues that matter."
"House Republicans are either unwilling or unable to get Marjorie Taylor Greene and the extreme MAGA Republicans under control, and so it's going to take a bipartisan coalition and partnership to accomplish that objective," Jeffries continued. "We need more common sense in Washington, D.C., and less chaos. The Republicans have done nothing but deliver chaos. We're in the common sense business."