Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority speaker, and other top Democrats have announced that they will come to the aid of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), agreeing they won’t let the embattled Republican lose his job.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) put forward a motion to vacate Johnson from the speakership over a month ago, in an ultimately fruitless effort to stop the House from passing an aid bill for Ukraine.
On Tuesday morning, Jeffries (D-NY), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) released a statement declaring their intention to shoot down Greene’s motion, and “turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction.”
In their statement, the Democratic leaders cited Johnson’s efforts to push the $95 billion aid bill through the House, and wrote that quashing Greene’s motion was a logical step for the party.
“House Democrats have aggressively pushed back against MAGA extremism.” they wrote. “We will continue to do just that.”
Internally, it seems the decision was an easy one. “There was certainly a strong feeling that, look, do we want more chaos? Absolutely not,” one House Democrat told Axios.
The lawmaker noted that some House Democrats would be “personally hard-pressed” to rescue Johnson, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and a noted Christian nationalist, but said, “enough people will vote to table it because we want government to function.”
A rebuffed Greene took to X shortly after, to air her frustration, minting Johnson the “Democratic Speaker of the House.”
“What slimy back room deal did Johnson make for the Democrats’ support?” Greene asked, deriding the effort of bipartisanship, a specialty of the Republican lawmaker.
Unable to delay aid to Ukraine, or oust the Republican speaker, Greene swore her vengeance upon her colleagues.
“If the Democrats want to elect him Speaker (and some Republicans want to support the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the chance to do it,” she wrote. “Americans deserve to see the Uniparty on full display. I’m about to give them their coming out party!”