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Tag: Marjorie Taylor Greene

  • House Republicans ditch their day jobs to stand with Trump, while legislating languishes

    House Republicans ditch their day jobs to stand with Trump, while legislating languishes

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    Leaving Washington behind, prominent far-right House Republicans who have repeatedly thrown this Congress into chaos showed up Thursday at Donald Trump’s hush money trial to do what they do best.

    They stood outside Trump Tower filming their support for the indicted former president. They filed into the Manhattan courthouse “standing back and standing by,” as Rep. Matt Gaetz put it — invoking Trump’s call to the extremist Proud Boys. They were admonished to put down their cell phones.

    And the House Republicans commandeered the spotlight — much like House Speaker Mike Johnson did earlier in the week — to rant against what they called the “kangaroo court” and the “political persecution” of Trump, as their day jobs waited for their return.

    “President Trump is not going anywhere,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., as hecklers interrupted.

    “And we are not going anywhere either. We are here to stand with him.”

    The split-screen scene between New York and D.C. provided one of the more vivid examples yet of how Republicans have tossed aside the de rigueur tasks of governing in favor of the engineered spectacle of grievance, performance and outrage that powers Trump-era American politics.

    As much of Congress stalled out yet again, unable to legislate through the country’s challenges, the Republicans chose to spend the day going viral.

    The excursion was all the more remarkable because it comes as House Republicans were focused Thursday on moving to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress — part of a broader campaign attack on President Joe Biden.

    The House’s Oversight and Judiciary Committee Republicans are demanding the Justice Department turn over evidence in the classified documents case against Biden, including an audio interview that is potentially embarrassing to the president as he stumbles through some answers. The Judiciary panel soldiered on Thursday, while the Oversight committee punted its hearing to evening, once lawmakers return.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, perhaps the most outspoken of Trump’s allies who joined him in New York when he was first charged in the case, lambasted her GOP colleagues for dashing to Manhattan when she said they should be back in Washington doing congressional business.

    “I’m here doing my job,” Greene said on the eve of the trip.

    Greene particularly criticized Johnson, the speaker she tried to oust, for “running up” to New York when she is pushing him toward her next big project, dismantling Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and its federal indictments against Trump, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

    It all unfolds as Congress is on record as being among the most unproductive in recent times, with few legislative accomplishments or bills passed into law.

    Republicans swept to House majority control in 2023, but became quickly consumed by infighting as traditional conservatives were pushed aside by Trump’s national populist Make America Great Again movement. They ousted their own leader, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, derailed priority bills and left Johnson forced to rely on help from Democrats to stay in power, an unheard of scenario.

    “The extreme MAGA Republicans have brought nothing but chaos, dysfunction and extremism to the Congress from the very beginning,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader. “And they cannot point to a single thing that they’ve been able to do on their own to deliver real results, to solve problems for hardworking American taxpayers.”

    “Get a job,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted on social media.

    Outside the courthouse, the dozen or so Republican lawmakers didn’t dress the same, as others did with matching dark suits and Trump-styled red ties earlier in the week, but still formed a unified front for Trump.

    “We’re watching the persecution of a patriot,” said Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn. “What a price to be a patriot President Trump has paid.”

    Gaetz called it the “Mr. Potato Head doll of crimes” where the prosecutors had to “stick together a bunch of things” to make a case.

    While some like Gaetz are among Trump’s biggest backers in Congress, others are working quickly to burnish their credentials with the MAGA movement that now defines the Republican Party for their own political survival.

    The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., had been late to endorse Trump, and now faces a difficult primary next month. His Trump-aligned challenger, Republican John McGuire, had a potentially even better position — riding with Trump’s motorcade to the courthouse.

    “We’re here to have his back,” Good said of Trump. “We’re here to defend him and to tell the truth about this travesty of justice, this political persecution, this election interference, this rigging of elections.”

    Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who had been a supporter of his home state presidential contender Nikki Haley, derided the “kangaroo court” prosecuting Trump.

    Arizona Rep. Eli Crane said Democrats are prosecuting Trump because “they can’t beat him” at the ballot box in November.

    Crane said he and other Republicans are fighting to “Make America Great Again,” which after the afternoon of heckling, drew a round of cheers.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press

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  • The Motion to Vacate Mike Johnson Seems Pretty Darn Motionless

    The Motion to Vacate Mike Johnson Seems Pretty Darn Motionless

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    It wasn’t looking good for Mike Johnson. Marjorie Taylor Greene, his chief antagonist, was threatening his job—and predicting others would join her cause. As he navigated the foreign aid package through his narrow House last week, with Democratic support and Joe Biden’s backing, the Georgia representative seemed to be right: Hardliners, including some who forced out Kevin McCarthy, were loudly registering their disapproval with Johnson. “It is surrender,” Matt Gaetz said of the speaker’s foreign aid plan. And Donald Trump, who had met with Johnson only days earlier in a show of support, seemed to waver last week as the potential groundswell grew: “We’ll see what happens with that,” the former president told reporters at the time.

    The threat to his gavel isn’t gone, but Johnson may be able to breathe a little easier: So far, only Thomas Massie and Paul Gosar have joined Greene’s motion to vacate—and even some who are frustrated with Johnson have indicated they aren’t mad enough to get into another brawl over the matter. “I think a motion to vacate right now would almost certainly turn the House over to Democrats, and that’s why I won’t support it,” said Gaetz, who led the McCarthy ouster. “I think we do the best we can with the speaker that we have…and have a contest to see who the conference can coalesce around as the best option in November,” added Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good.

    Making matters worse for Greene: Though Steve Bannon claimed that Trump was “furious” with Johnson for pushing through aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, the former president himself maintained Monday that he supports the speaker—a sign, it seems, that he also wants to avoid a messy battle for the gavel in the lead-up to the election. “I think he’s a very good person,” Trump told right-wing radio host John Fredericks Monday, after spending the day in a New York courtroom. “I think he’s trying very hard. And again, we’ve got to have a big election.”

    Johnson, the ex-president said, had “stood very strongly with me on NATO,” of which Trump is a critic, and had followed his advice to structure Ukraine aid partly as a loan. “We have a majority of one, OK?” Trump said. “It’s not like he can go and do whatever he wants to do.”

    Greene, a leading MAGA acolyte in the House, continues to show Johnson less understanding than her party leader: “Mike Johnson’s leadership is over,” she said Sunday on Fox News after the $95 billion aid package passed, including the Ukraine aid she said would cost him his job. “He needs to do the right thing and resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process.”

    “If he doesn’t do so,” Greened added, “he will be vacated.”

    By whom, though? Trump doesn’t seem to want him gone, which indicates that most who take their marching orders from him won’t, either. And even if she does add to her numbers, many Democrats have already signaled they would throw Johnson the lifeline they wouldn’t for his predecessor: “He deserves to keep his job till the end of his term,” progressive Ro Khanna said. Again, that doesn’t mean Johnson is completely in the clear; he still leads a chaotic conference in which a single member could put his job on the line. But after all of this, it could be Greene who finds herself all alone in the MAGAverse—facing mockery even from conservative media that has long propped her up: “The score in Congress,” the New York Post jeered after the aid package passed, “is now ‘Jewish space lasers lady 0, common sense 1.’”

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    Eric Lutz

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants Lawmakers Who Vote For Ukraine Aid Forced Into Ukrainian Military

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants Lawmakers Who Vote For Ukraine Aid Forced Into Ukrainian Military

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    Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

    Most conservative Republicans are very much against the over $60 billion in new Ukraine aid that the GOP and Democratic establishments desperately want. Especially considering the billions America has already spent there.

    Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a great idea: House members who insist on voting for this aid can also go over there and fight in the Ukrainian military.

    RELATED: MSNBC’s Joy Reid Says There’s Something ‘Wonderfully Poetic’ About DEI Officials Prosecuting Trump

    Greene to Pro-Ukraine Aid House Members: ‘Why Don’t You Go Fight’

    Greene introduced an amendment to the proposed aid on Wednesday.

    The bill would force members of Congress who vote to send more of our money to Ukraine to also go there and fight the war themselves.

    “Any Member of Congress who votes in favor of this Act shall be required to conscript in the Ukrainian military,” the amendment reads.

    Few expect Greene’s amendment to make into the final bill – bet her point is still taken.

    Greene and other Republicans have been staunch opponents of Ukraine aid and are slamming of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who on Wednesday presented the text of three aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

    So much for America First.

    RELATED: Trump Slams ‘Highly Biased’ Judge After Being Threatened With Arrest If He Doesn’t Attend Hush Money Trial

    Vacate Johnson?

    Greene has even filed a notion to vacate Johnson from his Speaker post, something her fellow Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has also signed off on over this insistence on sending even more taxpayer dollars abroad.

    Over in the Senate, Rand Paul agrees with Massie and Greene about Johnson.

    RELATED: ‘The Rock’ Quickly Caused A Liberal Meltdown By Saying He Wouldn’t Endorse Biden

    America Last

    America First is either something conservatives believe in or not. If Republican leadership is hellbent on sending billions to foreign countries instead of either letting Americans pay less in taxes or using it to fix problems in the U.S., what is the point of even having Republican leadership?

    Joe Biden loves Mike Johnson’s plan.

    The president said in a statement on Wednesday, “I strongly support this package to get critical support to Israel and Ukraine, provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. Israel is facing unprecedented attacks from Iran, and Ukraine is facing continued bombardment from Russia that has intensified dramatically in the last month.”

    Marjorie Taylor Greene’s idea to make Congress members go fight might be the best idea in this whole debate.

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    John Hanson

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  • House Republicans unveil aid bills for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan as Johnson pushes forward

    House Republicans unveil aid bills for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan as Johnson pushes forward

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    Washington — House Republican leadership on Wednesday unveiled the legislative text for three bills that are part of a complicated plan by Speaker Mike Johnson to get aid to U.S. allies while addressing concerns from conservatives.

    The three bills would provide $26.4 billion to support Israel, $60.8 billion to bolster Ukraine and $8.1 billion to counter China in the Indo-Pacific, including billions for Taiwan. The Israel bill also includes more than $9.1 billion to address humanitarian needs, which Democrats said was necessary for their support. 

    The fourth bill, which is set to be released later in the day, is geared toward addressing other GOP foreign policy priorities. That measure would allow the sale of frozen assets of Russian oligarchs, potentially force the sale of TikTok and authorize stricter sanctions on Russia, China and Iran. House Republicans are also expected to release a border security bill that would be considered separately.

    Johnson said he would give lawmakers 72 hours to review the legislation, teeing up a vote as soon as Saturday. President Biden said he would sign it into law, calling on the House to pass it this week and the Senate to quickly follow. Both chambers are scheduled to be in recess next week. 

    Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, announced the proposal on Monday amid mounting pressure from members in both parties to hold a vote on a bipartisan Senate package that includes support for the U.S. allies. The $95 billion supplemental funding package that passed the Senate in February has stagnated for months in the House as Johnson has debated a path forward.

    The divide over foreign aid

    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.

    Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images


    Lawmakers expressed new urgency around approving the funds for Israel after it faced unprecedented airstrikes by Iran over the weekend, which came in retaliation for an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria. And while Senate leaders and the White House had insisted that the House approving the Senate-passed package would be the most effective way to move forward, Johnson has resisted that pressure in the face of threats from the right flank of his party to oust him. 

    Foreign aid has highlighted the growing divide within the Republican Party, particularly in the House, where conservatives oppose additional funding to Ukraine.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has threatened to trigger a vote on ousting Johnson over Ukraine aid. Her effort lacked the public support of any of her GOP colleagues until Tuesday, when Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie signed onto the resolution to remove the speaker, known as a motion to vacate. 

    Johnson said he is “not resigning,” calling it “an absurd notion” that someone would bring a motion to vacate “when we are simply here trying to do our jobs.”

    The conservative House Freedom Caucus accused Johnson of “surrendering the last opportunity we have to combat the border crisis.” 

    A few conservatives, including Massie, met with Johnson on Wednesday afternoon after the legislative text was released. Leaving Johnson’s office, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, indicated he would vote against it in committee if border security was not linked to Ukraine aid. 

    The motion to vacate was not discussed during the meeting, Norman said. Asked whether he thinks Johnson should be ousted, Norman said he likes the speaker but he’s “disappointed.” 

    “We’ll see,” he added. 

    On Tuesday, a handful of Republican committee chairs backed Johnson’s plan and called for the legislation to be passed in the coming days. 

    “There is nothing our adversaries would love more than if Congress were to fail to pass critical national security aid,” the group said in a statement.

    GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said “this could be the beginning of the end for the speaker.” 

    “There are members who may send him on a vacation, shall we say,” Boebert said Wednesday afternoon, noting that she does not support the effort to oust him. “But it’s out of my hands.” 

    With such a narrow majority, Democrats would have to step in to save Johnson if Greene or Massie follow through with forcing a vote. Republicans can afford to lose just two votes if all members are present and voting. After Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin resigns, Republicans can spare a single vote. But Gallagher, who was set to step down Friday, may postpone his departure so that he can vote for the foreign aid package. An aide to Gallagher said Wednesday he “has the flexibility to stay and support the aid package on Saturday.”

    Democrats kept the door open to backing Johnson’s plan, as long as it included aid to the three U.S. allies and humanitarian assistance. House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California said Tuesday they were “more concerned about the substance” of the legislation “than we are the process.” 

    “If Speaker Johnson’s version is missing one of these components, it’s highly unlikely Democrats would support it,” said Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the caucus’ vice chair. 

    House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts called Johnson’s indecisiveness “a threat to global security,” adding that Johnson’s effort to pacify his detractors is futile. 

    “How many appearances has he made saying ‘I am bringing up Ukraine funding next week’? Here we are. There is no appeasing the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of this conference,” Clark told reporters Wednesday. 

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Tuesday morning he was “reserving judgment” on the proposal until more details are released, while again calling on the House to vote on the Senate bill. 

    Ellis Kim, Nikole Killion, Jaala Brown, Kristin Brown and Cristina Corujo contributed reporting.

    Caitlin Yilek

    Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.

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  • Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet

    Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet

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    PALM BEACH, Fla. – Donald Trump offered a political lifeline Friday to House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying the beleaguered GOP leader is doing a “very good job,” and tamping down the far-right forces led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to oust him from office.

    Trump and Johnson appeared side-by-side at the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago club, a rite of passage for the new House leader as he hitches himself, and his GOP majority, to the indicted Republican Party leader ahead of the November election.

    “I stand with the speaker,” Trump said at an evening press conference at his gilded private club.

    Trump said he thinks Johnson, of Louisiana, is “doing a very good job – he’s doing about as good as you’re going to do.”

    “We’re getting along very well with the speaker — and I get along very well with Marjorie,” Trump said.

    But Trump flashed some criticism over efforts to oust the speaker calling it “unfortunate,” saying there are “much bigger problems” right now.

    The visit was arranged as a joint announcement on new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting, but the trip itself is significant for both. Johnson needed Trump to temper hard-line threats to evict him from office. And Trump benefits from the imprimatur of official Washington dashing to Florida to embrace his comeback bid for the White House and his tangled election lies.

    “It is the symbolism,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator and frequent Trump critic.

    “There was a time when the Speaker of the House of Representatives was a dominant figure in American politics,” he said. “Look where we are now, where he comes hat in hand to Mar-a-Lago.”

    While the moment captured the fragility of the speaker’s grip on the gavel, just six months on the job, it also put on display his evolving grasp of Trump-era politics as the Republicans in Congress align with the “Make America Great Again” movement powering the former president’s re-election bid.

    Johnson and Trump underscored their alliance Friday by using similar wording to describe one part of their campaign strategy — pummeling President Joe Biden with alarmist language over what Republicans claim is a “migrant invasion.”

    By linking the surge of migrants coming to the U.S. with the upcoming election, Trump and Johnson raised the specter of noncitizens from voting — even though it’s already a federal felony for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in a federal election and exceedingly rare.

    Trump called America a “dumping ground” for migrants coming to the U.S., and revived pressure on Biden to “close the border.”

    The speaker nodded along. “It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election,” warned Johnson, who had played a key role in challenging the 2020 election that Trump lost to Biden, previewing potential 2024 arguments.

    In fact, Trump had made similar claims of illegal voting in 2016 but the commission he appointed to investigate the issue disbanded without identifying a single case. A previous voter crackdown risked striking actual citizens from the voting rolls.

    Ahead of the meeting, the Trump campaign sent a background paper that echoed language from the racist great replacement conspiracy theory to suggest that Biden and Democrats are engaging in what Trump’s campaign called “a willful and brazen attempt to import millions of new voters.”

    Some liberal cities like San Francisco have begun to allow noncitizens to vote in a few local elections. But there’s no evidence of significant numbers of immigrants violating federal law by casting illegal ballots.

    Afterward, Trump’s team said the speaker agreed to hold a series of public committee meetings over the next two months ahead of the new House legislation.

    Greene, a top Trump ally, said on social media that while she is “working as hard as possible” to elect Trump, “I do not support Speaker Johnson.”

    In the Trump era, the sojourns by Republican leaders to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, have become defining moments, amplifying the lopsided partnership as the former president commandeers the party in sometimes humiliating displays of power.

    Such was the case when Kevin McCarthy, then the House GOP leader, trekked to Mar-a-Lago after having been critical of the defeated president after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. A cheery photo was posted afterward, a sign of their mending relationship.

    Johnson proposed the idea of coming to Mar-a-Lago weeks before Greene filed her motion to vacate him from the speaker’s office, just as another group of hardliners had previously ousted McCarthy. The visit comes days before the former president’s criminal trial on hush money charges gets underway next week in New York City.

    The speaker’s own political future depends on support — or at least not opposition — from the “Make America Great Again” Republicans who are aligned with Trump but creating much of the House dysfunction that has brought work there to a halt.

    Johnson commands the narrowest majority in modern times and a single quip from the former president can derail legislation. He was once a Trump skeptic, but the two men now talk frequently.

    “I think it’s an emerging relationship,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who served as interior secretary in the Trump administration.

    Even still, Trump urged Republicans this week to “kill” a national security surveillance bill that Johnson had personally worked to pass, contributing to a sudden defeat that sent the House spiraling. The legislation was approved Friday in a do-over but only after Johnson provided his own vote before departing for Florida.

    Johnson understands he needs Trump’s backing to conduct almost any business in the House — including his next big priority, providing U.S. aid to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion.

    In a daring move, the speaker is working both sides to help Ukraine, talking directly to the White House on the national security package that is at risk of collapse with Trump’s opposition. Greene is warning of a snap vote to oust Johnson from leadership if he allows any U.S. assistance to flow to the overseas ally.

    “We’re looking at it,” Trump said about the national security package.

    On the issue of election integrity, though, Johnson is leading his House GOP majority to embrace Trump’s lies about a stolen election and laying the groundwork for 2024 challenges.

    Trump continues to insist the 2020 election was marred by fraud, even though no evidence has emerged in the last four years to support his claims and every state in the nation certified their results as valid.

    As he runs to reclaim the White House, Trump has essentially taken over the Republican National Committee, turning the campaign apparatus toward his priorities. He supported Michael Whatley to lead the RNC, which created a new “Election Integrity Division” and says it is working to hire thousands of lawyers across the country.

    Tired of the infighting and wary of another dragged-out brawl like the monthlong slugfest last year to replace McCarthy, few Republicans are backing Greene’s effort to remove Johnson, for now.

    But if Trump signals otherwise, that could all change.

    __

    Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves, Kevin Freking and Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Lisa Mascaro And Jill Colvin, Associated Press

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  • With deadline looming, Senate races to approve $1.2 trillion government spending package

    With deadline looming, Senate races to approve $1.2 trillion government spending package

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    With deadline looming, Senate races to approve $1.2 trillion government spending package – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Amid a divided Congress, the House Friday approved a $1.2 trillion government spending package, sending it to the Senate ahead of a midnight deadline in an effort to avoid a partial government shutdown. Scott MacFarlane has the latest.

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  • Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson

    Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson

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    WASHINGTON – Speaker Mike Johnson is at risk of being ousted after hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate on Friday in the middle of a House vote on a $1.2 trillion package to keep the government open.

    It’s the same political dynamic that removed the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, just five months ago when far-right conservatives revolted over his compromise with Democrats to prevent a federal shutdown. But this one faces steeper odds with less GOP support.

    The House is scheduled to leave town for a two-week spring recess at the end of Friday’s session, and it’s doubtful any vote on removing Johnson, of Louisiana, would be imminent.

    “Speaker Johnson always listens to the concerns of members but is focused on governing,” spokesman Raj Shah said. “He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense and demonstrates how we’ll grow our majority.”

    Under the rules, any member can make the motion privileged, which would require leaders to schedule a vote within two legislative days. But it can also simply sit until lawmakers return next month.

    Greene, of Georgia, said she was issuing a “warning” to Johnson but did not indicate a timetable for her next move.

    “We’ve started the clock to start the process to elect a new speaker,” she said on the Capitol steps.

    Yet even the threat of removal, the ultimate punishment for a speaker, will hang over Johnson’s young speakership, just months on the job — particularly as he turns next to passing funding to support Ukraine that far-right Republicans oppose.

    No speaker had been removed this way until McCarthy’s dramatic ouster last fall, a swift, stunning and chaotic episode that essentially shuttered the House chamber for weeks as Republicans searched for a new speaker.

    Greene is a leading ally of the Republicans’ presumed 2024 presidential nominee, former president Donald Trump, and McCarthy, of California, was toppled by a similar contingent of far-right Republicans led at the time by Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.

    The Georgia congresswoman spoke vehemently against House passage of the government funding bill, and she has warned she would try to remove the speaker if he pushes ahead with a package to support Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion.

    Johnson has refused to put a $95 billion Senate-passed national security package with Ukraine funds to a House vote, but nevertheless he promised to fund Ukraine as the a next priority. The removal threat against him now puts any votes to help Ukraine in potential jeopardy.

    With the most narrow majority in modern times, Johnson has a weak grasp on his Republicans in the House. He can risk only a few defectors on any vote, meaning he could be easily ousted, unless Democrats jump in with their votes to protect him.

    Still, many Republicans in Congress were embarrassed by McCarthy’s removal as speaker, which exposed deep party divisions and infighting that left their new majority, in office since January, unable to fully function on priorities.

    The night before Friday’s voting, Gaetz warned against trying to oust Johnson, saying that Republican lawmakers fed up with the process would cross the aisle and vote for the Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

    “If we vacated this speaker, we’d end up with a Democrat,” Gaetz predicted late Thursday. “When I vacated the last one, I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker. … I couldn’t make that promise again today.”

    The idea of a Republican House majority casting votes to make a Democrat the House speaker would be an unheard of political situation.

    But with Republicans at war among themselves it is also one that could potentially transpire as they try to return Congress to a sense of normalcy.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Lisa Mascaro And Farnoush Amiri, Associated Press

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Forces Biden To Say Laken Riley’s Name And Admit She Was Killed By An Illegal Immigrant In SOTU

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Forces Biden To Say Laken Riley’s Name And Admit She Was Killed By An Illegal Immigrant In SOTU

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    Opinion

    Screenshot: End Wokeness

    Marjorie Taylor Greene twice pressured President Biden at the State of the Union speech to say the name of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia who was tragically murdered allegedly by an illegal immigrant while jogging on campus.

    It worked. Sort of. If he only knew her name.

    The first incident took place during the time-honored tradition in which the President walks into the chamber and is greeted by members of Congress as he heads off to deliver the State of the Union address.

    In a direct face-to-face confrontation, Greene (R-GA) handed Biden a pin with Laken Riley’s name and face on it and demanded: “Laken Riley. Say her name.”

    The suspect in Riley’s murder, Jose Ibarra, is an illegal immigrant who had been arrested in 2022 for illegally crossing the border near El Paso, Texas. Details of the case are gruesome.

    Republicans suggest that her case is an example of the President’s failed open border policies.

    RELATED: Illegal Alien Arrested For Murdering Laken Riley Accused Of ‘Seriously Disfiguring’ Her Skull

    Greene Again Confronts Biden DURING The State Of The Union

    Biden gave a rather contentious State of the Union speech, filled with partisan attacks against his political opponents, a noticeable break in decorum for such an event.

    Many of his comments prompted shouting from Republican lawmakers who disapproved of his assertions. When the President spoke about the border crisis, Greene shouted again: “Say her name.”

    And he did. Well, at least he tried to.

    “Lincoln, Lincoln Riley,” Biden said, holding up the pin Greene had handed to him earlier. “An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.”

    Biden going off script had to have left his handlers flummoxed. And he promptly made things worse by downplaying Riley’s murder and suggesting more Americans are being killed by “legals.”

    Related: Trump Dubs Today ‘National Day of Remembrance’ For Americans Who Have Been Murdered By Illegal Immigrants

    Stunning Moment

    President Biden being forced to say the name of a woman murdered by an illegal immigrant during the State of the Union address is a remarkable moment. Especially for a man who has run the single most pro-illegal administration in the history of this nation.

    His own Department of Homeland Security warned against using the term “illegal alien” in 2021. And several Democrats were outraged that he used the word at all. More outraged, it would seem, than they were over the killing of Laken Riley itself.

    There has been some debate over whether or not President Biden meant to say “illegals” or “legals” regarding his follow-up statement on Riley.

    Former Fox News Producer Kyle Becker contends that the comment was terrible whichever way you look at it.

    “If Biden meant to say LEGALS, Joe wasn’t just owning himself by showing he didn’t even know the girl’s name, he minimized her death for political points by equating it to a murder by legal migrant,” Becker wrote on X.

    “If he meant ILLEGALS, then he is damning his own disastrous border policies.”

    In addressing the murder of Laken Riley, President Biden did as he so often does. He compared her murder to the death of his son Beau.

    “To her parents I say my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself, I understand,” he said.

    Critics would suggest that Beau Biden’s death, while certainly tragic and heartbreaking, is not comparable to losing a child due to a highly preventable murder.

    Follow Rusty on X

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  • Biden says her name — Laken Riley — at urging of GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

    Biden says her name — Laken Riley — at urging of GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — It was what the Republicans demanded, but never expected.

    President Joe Biden said her name.

    “Laken Riley.”

    Even before Biden started speaking, the topic of border security was certain to rise as one of the most tense moments in the State of the Union address.

    Biden was confronted as he walked into the House chamber by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hardline Republican, decked out in a red Trump MAGA hat and a t-shirt emblazoned with the message, which was also on a button she pressed into his hand.

    “Say her name,” it said, the phrase evoking the language used by activists after the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of police.

    The death of Laken Riley, a nursing student from Georgia, has become a rallying cry for Republicans, a tragedy that they say encompasses the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S-Mexico border amid a record surge of immigrants entering the country. An immigrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally has been arrested and charged with murder.

    Midway through the speech, Biden started talking about border security and called on Congress to pass legislation to secure the border and modernize the country’s outdated immigration laws, praising the bipartisan effort that collapsed when his likely Republican presidential rival, Donald Trump, opposed it.

    Greene interjected, “Say her name!”

    The congresswoman from Georgia yelled, pointing a finger, and jabbing it toward Biden.

    And then Biden did just that.

    He held up the white button, and said: “Laken Riley.”

    Biden spoke briefly of her death and he made reference to his own family’s trauma — his first wife and young daughter were killed in 1972 after an automobile crash. His son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015.

    And then he urged Congress to work together to pass a border security compromise.

    “Get this bill done!” Biden said.

    He even called on Trump to stop fighting against any border deal.

    “We can do it together,” he said.

    With immigration becoming a top issue in the presidential election, Republicans are using nearly every tool at their disposal — including impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — to condemn how the president has handled the border.

    Hours earlier, the House voted to pass the “Laken Riley Act,” which would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain unauthorized migrants who are accused of theft.

    Authorities have arrested on murder and assault charges Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case. He has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

    Trump has used Riley’s death to slam Biden’s handling of the border and at one event this month told the crown that the president would never say her name.

    Biden has also adopted some of the language of Trump on the border, and on Thursday night, he called the man charged with murdering Riley an “illegal.”

    That was disappointing to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “I wish he hadn’t engaged with Marjorie Taylor Greene and used the word illegal,” she told the AP after the speech.

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, the speaker emeritus, said afterward on CNN, “Now he should have said ‘undocumented,’ but it’s not a big thing.”

    Greene had handed out the buttons earlier in the day. Biden also looked up to the gallery where many guests were seated, but Riley’s parents were not there.

    Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, said this week that he had invited Riley’s parents to the State of the Union address, but they had “chosen to stay home as they grieve the loss of their daughter.”

    __

    Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Jill Colvin contributed to this story.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Has A Pornographic Slip Up While Saying Trump’s Name

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Has A Pornographic Slip Up While Saying Trump’s Name

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    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was talking about how excited the crowd in South Carolina was to see Trump when she called him President Come.

    Video:

    Greene said, “You can hear the excitement in the crowd. They’re cheering and so excited to see President Come.”

    Who knows what Greene is trying to say, but she does seem to have a Hunter Biden porn addiction.
    I am pretty sure that even the most devoted Trump supporters didn’t come to a rally to see Donald Trump do what her words suggested. Greene worships Trump and desperately wants to be his running mate, but if what she said is what is on her mind, I may need to go and inject some bleach.

    Donald Trump hopefully will be just speaking to the crowd in South Carolina today on the eve of the state’s presidential primary, where Trump hopes to increase his death grip on the Republican nomination.

    As for Marjorie Taylor Greene, it is safe to say that she does not have a future career in television, even if she seems to be a red stater who works blue.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Storms Out Of Hearing As Dem Lawmaker Puts Her On Blast

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Storms Out Of Hearing As Dem Lawmaker Puts Her On Blast

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    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) stormed out of a committee meeting on Tuesday as a Democratic lawmaker gave her a reminder about her own recent past during a hearing on crime in Washington, D.C.

    Greene, a conspiracy theorist who spoke at a white nationalist event in 2022, went on a lengthy rant on everything from crime in the nation’s capital to gun rights to Donald Trump to Black Lives Matter and beyond.

    “That was a lot,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said when she was done, then pointed out what he found “ironic” about Greene talking about crime in Washington, D.C.

    “She literally supported an insurrection and attack on the Capitol,” Garcia said.

    He said Greene “coddled” the insurrectionists when she visited them last year in jail, where she offered them handshakes and pats on the back and said they were “political prisoners.”

    “They actually tried to overthrow our government,” Garcia reminded her.

    That caused Greene ― who last month called Hunter Biden a “coward” for leaving a hearing when she was speaking about him ― to walk out of the hearing. She appeared to shout something as she left, but it’s not clear what she tried to say.

    “She’s insane,” Garcia later wrote on X:

    Garcia last year also lashed out at Greene over her support for those arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.

    “The first thing she does is … greets them and hugs them and prays with them and apologizes and is treating them like heroes, and I’m sitting there going, this is disgusting,” Garcia told MeidasTouch co-founder Ben Meiselas in autumn. “These people attacked our government, they tried to overthrow our government.”



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  • Trump’s massive monetary verdict in Carroll trial sets MAGA on fire

    Trump’s massive monetary verdict in Carroll trial sets MAGA on fire

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    Supporters of former President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement took to social media to express their outrage over Friday’s verdict ordering Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll.

    “Pres Trump was denied a fair trial in NY where judges are now political activist [sic] instead of delivering justice!” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and vocal ally of Trump, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the verdict.

    Greene’s sentiment was echoed by many members of the MAGA community following the jury’s decision that Trump must pay the hefty sum to Carroll, who accused the former president of defaming her reputation as a journalist by denying he raped her in the mid-1990s.

    Carroll claims Trump forcibly groped and then raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan nearly three decades ago. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has claimed that he had never heard of Carroll prior to her legal action against him.

    “Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” Trump said in a statement after the verdict was announced. “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”

    Former President Donald Trump is seen wearing a Make American Great Again (MAGA) cap at Trump National Golf Club on August 13, 2023, in Bedminster, New Jersey. Supporters of Trump’s MAGA movement flooded social media…


    Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images

    “The court ruled that Donald Trump is not guilty of rape in the case of E. Jean Carroll. Yet, the same court still ordered Trump to pay the lunatic woman $83.3 million,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson said on X. “Another example of how the government has been weaponized against Donald Trump in attempt to ruin the man.”

    As Johnson referenced, a different jury in May found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and awarded her $5 million but rejected her claim that she was raped.

    “She has no evidence he assaulted her. He never even met her. But when he proclaimed his innocence, she sued him & won $80+ million dollars. The machine is trying to stop Trump at all costs. But it won’t work,” right-wing social media personality Rogan O’Handley, also known as “DC Draino,” posted on X.

    Conservative activist Laura Loomer called the verdict “insanely unjust,” while other MAGA supporters shared clips of Trump attorney Alina Habba‘s fiery denunciation of the jury’s verdict.

    Trump’s verdict was also criticized by at least one public figure not widely associated with MAGA, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

    Although Blagojevich still identified as a Democrat as recently as 2022, he has previously spoken fondly of Trump, who commuted the former governor’s federal prison sentence. (Blagojevich was convicted of 17 charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy to solicit bribes, and impeached by his state’s legislature.)

    “I learned the hard way you can’t trust the courts. Today’s verdict against Trump for exercising free speech shows how political & broken our courts have become,” Blagojevich wrote on X. “To quote Taylor Swift, ‘the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world’ continue to be unjustly rewarded.”