‘We Fought Like Warrior Poets’: Speaker Johnson Calls MTG Motion to Vacate a ‘Distraction’ From Mission to ‘Save The Republic’

Republican Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana said Sunday the latest move to oust him from the speakership, brought by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, is a “distraction” and that Republicans “don’t need any dissension right now.”

He also noted they’ve been speaking by text message, including on Easter, and will be meeting soon about the situation.

Johnson appeared on FNC’s Sunday Night in America on Easter and spoke about the current state of the Republican agenda in the House with host Trey Gowdy, who is himself a former member of the House GOP.

MTG made her call for removal just over a week ago, after the bipartisan spending bill was passed, but did not file her motion, House Resolution 1103, as a privileged resolution, which would have required immediate action on the House floor. As a result, the motion is currently “just hanging there,” as Johnson put it, while the House is on a spring recess.

But just filing the motion and putting on pressure in the media and on her social networks had some fellow Republicans fed up and saying so on Sunday. Republican Rep. Mike Turner referred to MTG and some of her cohorts as the “Chaos Caucus.”

Gowdy, bringing it up with Johnson on Sunday, said that one would think Georgia Republicans like Greene would better spend their time “looking to reclaim those two GOP, those two Senate seats” in Georgia, after both races were lost to Democrats in 2020. “Two eminently winnable seats,” he said.

“How does it help the GOP grow the majority to be talking about a motion to vacate, instead of talking about the border or inflation or other issues that are better for the GOP” he asked. “How does this motion to vacate help win back the majority or win a bigger majority?”

“I don’t think it does,” Johnson replied. “And I think all of my other Republican colleagues recognize this is a distraction from our mission. Again, the mission is to save the Republic. And the only way we can do that is if we grow the House majority, win the Senate and win the White House. So, we don’t need any dissension right now.”

Johnson revealed he’s been exchanging text messages with Greene regularly, including on Easter Sunday, and that he will speaking with her on the subject next week.

He said that he understands she is frustrated, but that even if they weren’t able to get all “the terrible stuff out” of the spending bill, they still “fought like warrior poets’ to make it the best that they could.

GOWDY: Speaker, there is a pending motion to vacate from a member, from Georgia, which, sort of illustrates where we are politically. We lost two Senate seats in Georgia, Republicans did. Two eminently winnable Senate seats. I would think members time would be better spent looking to reclaim those two GOP, those two, Senate seats in Georgia, as opposed to hanging the sword of Damocles over your head. But you’re on Easter recess right now.

How does it help the GOP grow the majority to be talking about a motion to vacate, instead of talking about the border or inflation or other issues that are better for the GOP. How does this motion to vacate help win back the majority or win a bigger majority.

JOHNSON: I don’t think it does. And I think all of my other Republican colleagues recognize this is a distraction from our mission. Again, the mission is to save the Republic. And the only way we can do that is if we grow the House majority, win the Senate and win the White House. So, we don’t need any dissension right now.

Look, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed the motion. It’s not a privileged motion so it doesn’t move automatically. It’s just hanging there, and she’s frustrated. She and I exchanged text messages even today. We’re going to talk early next week.

Marjorie’s a friend. She’s very frustrated about, for example, the last appropriations bills. Guess what? So am I. As we discussed Trey, these are not the perfect pieces of legislation that you and I and Marjorie would draft if we had the ability to do it differently. But with the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like. And the Democrats know that when we don’t all stand together with our razor-thin majority that they have a better negotiation position. And that’s why we got some of the things we didn’t like.

Now we fought like warrior poets to keep some of those Senate appropriations or some of those Senate earmarks out of the bill. And we were successful in getting a lot of the terrible stuff out, but a few of them made it through. And that’s what Marjorie’s upset about, and I am, too. But I want to talk with her about reforming the budgeting and spending process going forward. That’s what Republicans are for. That’s the transformational kind of changes that we can forge if we all stand together.

GOWDY: I would just remind people that Congressman Mike Johnson did not run for speaker the first time. The second time, the third time, I mean, he was drafted. So, he was a, truly a reluctant leader. If there are if there is such a thing left anymore, that’s what you are. You have an impossibly difficult job. Happy Easter to you and your family.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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