MAGA Republicans Are Publicly Threatening Their Speaker

The weekend was littered with high profile threats from MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tim Burchett about Johnson’s Speakership.

“If Speaker Johnson doesn't deliver on the conservative credentials he promised us, then I suspect we will be looking for a new Speaker,” Burchett told CNN reporter Boris Sanchez during an interview.

“If there’s a potential shutdown, don’t you think that will hurt Republicans in an election year?” Sanchez asked.

“I think we better stop worrying about political expediency and and we better start worrying about our country,” Burchett replied ominously.

House Republicans have kicked the proverbial can down the road since October 2023 regarding the budget for fiscal year 2024. 

In May 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a deal with President Biden for 2024’s budget—but ultimately reneged under pressure from his conference’s far right flank. 

McCarthy instead settled for a last minute half measure: a temporary continuing resolution which kept the government funded for several weeks at its current levels—and was removed from power by 8 Republicans and the entire Democratic conference as punishment for deceiving both parties with mutually exclusive promises.

After becoming Speaker in late October, Johnson was forced into a similar series of laddered continuing resolutions to avoid a shutdown. The first of these is set to expire on January 19th, triggering a shutdown unless Johnson makes a deal with the Senate and the president.

Likewise, Marjorie Taylor Greene is publicly threatening Johnson—particularly over a recent border deal negotiated by Senate Democrats and Republicans, though Johnson has not publicly supported it.

“And that's why I told Speaker Johnson if he made that [border] deal in exchange for $60 billion for Ukraine,” Greene seethed to Fox News personality Maria Bartiromo, “I would vacate the chair, and I still stand by those words.”

The motion to vacate the chair is a formal process which initiates the potential end of a Speakership. Under the current rules, it only takes one Republican to begin the process. Matt Gaetz triggered it in October for Kevin McCarthy.

Video credits