For weeks, a radical Republican threatened to drive her party colleague out of office. The attempt clearly failed. With the help of the Democrats.
For weeks, a radical Republican loudly threatened to drive her party colleague from the office of chairman of the House of Representatives. Her attempt failed miserably.
The Republican-dominated US House of Representatives, with the help of the Democrats, rejected a vote of no confidence in Republican Chairman Mike Johnson. With a clear majority of Republican and Democratic MPs, the House of Representatives rejected radical Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove Johnson from his powerful post on Wednesday (local time).
Greene, who is an ardent supporter of the former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, had been threatening her party colleague Johnson with such an initiative for weeks and thus put herself in the spotlight. She submitted a corresponding proposal at the end of March, after Johnson had enabled a vote in the House of Representatives on a budget package that Republican hardliners rejected.
Greene had initially only done this as a “warning”, but had already announced that he would move forward if Johnson allowed a vote on US aid to Ukraine. This is what happened about a month later: The US Congress approved billions in aid for the country attacked by Russia.
An embarrassing defeat for Greene
Leading Democrats in the House of Representatives then announced that they would support Johnson and block Greene’s motion if the 49-year-old actually made it. They now kept this promise and supported Johnson in large numbers during the vote in order to avert a vote of no confidence.
The Democrats’ help is likely to be a return for Johnson’s support for Ukraine aid, which he had previously blocked for months. Many Republicans, who have had enough of the chaos in their own ranks, also threw their support behind Johnson.
For the agitator Greene, the campaign is an embarrassing defeat. Johnson said after the vote that he hoped this would be the end of the kind of distractions, profiling attempts and character assassination campaigns that have characterized the chamber in recent months. Parliament has more important tasks to do.
The 52-year-old only took over the office, which comes second to the president and his vice president in the United States’ ranking, about six months ago. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was driven out of office at the beginning of October by a group of radical Republicans – with the help of the Democrats, who failed to protect McCarthy from the fall. The Republicans only have a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.