Speaking to “War Room” host Steve Bannon on Friday, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she has threatened Speaker of the House Mike Johnson with a motion to vacate the chair, over his spending deal with Chuck Schumer and the Senate to keep the government funded and dodge a shutdown.
As background, it was a $1.66 trillion deal which Speaker Johnson agreed to. Defending his decision to stick with it despite GOP complaints in a brief statement, arguing that the deal to which he agreed came after weeks of negotiations and included the feedback of the members of the GOP caucus.
But conservatives like Steve Bannon remained furious over the short-term spending agreement. Speaking to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene about it during the Friday broadcast of “War Room,” Bannon said, “Tell me about Johnson sitting there and saying, hey, you guys are all in agreement. You were all singing Kumbaya. There’s no controversy about the top-line deal, the Schumer deal.”
Continuing, Bannon asked for details on how members of the GOP responded to Johnson’s spending package, asking, “I’ve had 10 people tell me that’s not true. Just help me out. Give me a minute on that. Where we stand with Johnson, at least tell everybody he had hard-fought negotiations and MTG supports him?”
Rep. Greene first emphasized that she would not be supporting the bill, saying, “Well, I just have had meetings with him yesterday and today since I was on your show yesterday, Steve, um, and my meeting with him yesterday and many other members of Congress, I let Speaker Johnson know that in no way, shape and form will I support any type of CR.”
Then, continuing, she skewered the spending package, calling it “Nancy Pelosi’s budget.” She said, “We aren’t continuing Nancy’s budget, Nancy Pelosi’s budget, and that if he moves forward with a separate deal, trading our border security, weakening H.R. Two in exchange for $60 billion to Ukraine. I told him yesterday in his office that I would vacate the chair, that that is absolutely unacceptable.”
Concluding and explaining what Constitutional power the House holds over spending, implying that Speaker Johnson should flex that power, she said, “And we actually have the power of the purse. We’re the ones that are in control and we need to control the negotiations. Uh, I reiterated those same points this morning. So the ball is in his court.”
Watch the interview here:
Speaker Johnson, defending his decision to stand by the deal with the Senate Democrats, said, “After weeks of hard-fought negotiations, we achieved a strong top-line agreement that allows our appropriations committee and all those who work on this to complete the appropriations process. It’s an important part of keeping the government running.”
He continued, “In keeping up with my commitment to bring members into the legislative process, I’ve spoken and received feedback this week from many members all across the Republican Conference. That’s a very important part of this. When I became Speaker, I committed to decentralizing the speaker’s Speaker’s office and making this a member-driven process.”
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