Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene finally followed through on repeated threats to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over the passage of a $1.2 trillion spending bill. Congress now will vote on her measure, likely following a two-week recess, giving her colleagues no shortage of headaches as they head into November’s elections.
MTG had been a close ally of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy as Republican rebels led by Matt Gaetz ousted him, but her relationship with Johnson has been far more tenuous. Actually following through on the motion to vacate, though, is a major shift for the Georgian, who lambasted a proposed motion to vacate from Representative Chip Roy back in January, saying that “haphazardly throwing in a motion to vacate is probably about the dumbest thing that could happen because I think the last motion to vacate was pretty stupid, and has thrown our conference into utter chaos.”
Apparently today is different. How? She said her motion should serve as “more of a warning than a pink slip,” borne out of anger over the latest government funding bills. Conservatives’ growing frustration with Johnson does not match the reality that with an ever-slimming GOP House majority, combined with a Democratic Senate and White House, enacting Republican wish lists is slightly difficult at the moment.
The new rules of the House do, however, allow for any member of Congress to force a motion to vacate; that rule both allowed McCarthy to become speaker last January, and allowed the “Gaetz Eight” to boot him.
The news is part of a larger trend of Republicans cashing in on fighting within their ranks. Representative Ken Buck, who went from Freedom Caucus co-founder to darling of the left over the course of the past decade, is quitting Congress early to, almost certainly, become a well-compensated TV talking head. On the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, MTG is going to all but certainly dominate cable news coverage into the next week, and will continue to rake in small dollar donations, as Democrats salivate at the thought of prolonged Republican in-fighting.
It’s not hard to see how MTG’s motion to vacate is a massive gift to Democrats. The House passed a bipartisan bill to force the Chinese Communist Party to divest from TikTok, which is now lingering in the Democratic-controlled Senate. That could have been a helpful source of political contrast for the GOP, but will now be pushed down the rundown of cable news shows.
At this point, the main questions are: will the motion to remove Johnson actually succeed? And will Democrats help him out? So far, the measure is falling flat even with Greene’s conservative colleagues in her home state. Representative Mike Collins, her fellow Georgia Republican, responded to her by posting a clip dunking on her motion. “I sure hope nobody vacates the speaker again,” he wrote.
MTG’s version of MTV is going to be great for her personally and professionally, but it likely won’t pass.
-Matthew Foldi
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On our radar
TRONE-DEAF Maryland Democratic congressman David Trone apologized after unintentionally uttering an antiquated racial slur about black people during a hearing with the OMB director, Shalanda Young, who is black.
TRUTH GOES PUBLIC A merger between Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, and a shell company went through on Friday, boosting the former president’s wealth by $3 billion.
McDANIEL’S NEW GIG Former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel will join NBC and MSNBC News as an on-air contributor and political analyst for the 2024 election.
Biden’s Michigan problem
Michigan and Pennsylvania flipped from red to blue in the 2020 presidential election. If Joe Biden wants to keep his job, he needs to keep their support. Recent surveys give him reasons to worry.
CNN’s latest polling, conducted by SSRS, found a dead-even race between Biden and Donald Trump in Pennsylvania (46 percent each). More concerning for the Democratic candidate, though, Trump is ahead by 8 percent in Michigan.
In Pennsylvania, the poll suggests that Biden and Trump are running about even with voters younger than thirty-five. Still, Biden has kept his advantage with women, college graduates and racial minorities. In Michigan, though, Biden’s advantage with racial minorities is narrower and the women vote is split about evenly. Furthermore, Trump leads in the Great Lake State with young voters and independents. Meanwhile, Biden appears set to damage the auto industry — a major employer in Michigan — with his new EV-boosting emissions standards.
The polling also shows that although things are looking worse for Biden, both candidates are viewed unfavorably by majorities of Pennsylvania and Michigan voters, with a sixth in each state identifying as what CNN labels “double haters.” With third-party options like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the race, this fact presents a headache for big party strategists, who fear underestimating the impacts of the other wannabe presidents on their candidate.
–Juan P. Villasmil
Canned-dance
Candace Owens’s watch at the Daily Wire has ended. The news came in the form of an X post from Wire CEO and Lady Ballers star Jeremy Boreing: “Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship.”
The separation comes shortly after Owens said she’d “stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” making her exit a big win for trans rights. As they say en France, quand tu viens chez la reine, tu ferais mieux de ne pas manquer.
Other Owens highlights of her time at the Wire include her recent questions about a “small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism”; her spat with Wire founder Ben Shapiro over his defense of Israel; her attempts to explain away her pal Kanye West’s “death con 3 on Jewish people comment” — “If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic”; donning a “White Lives Matter” shirt with West at his Paris fashion show, and her fireside chat with accused rapist and sex trafficker Andrew Tate.
Owens will doubtless be missed… before starting her own X show in the near future.
–Cockburn
From the site
Matt McDonald: Behind the fight against TikTok
Cockburn: How will Trump pay his bond?
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