Mike Johnson survives attempt to remove him as speaker of the US House of Representatives.

May 9, 2024 Vaseline stjohnson 0

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Mike Johnson has survived an attempt to unseat him as House speaker by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hardline Republican congresswoman from Georgia, ending a period of infighting that has consumed the party in Congress.

In a vote Wednesday night, the House rejected Greene’s attempt to move forward with a motion to unseat Johnson, and Democrats joined most Republicans to rescue the Louisiana lawmaker, who became the chief legislator of the lower house of Congress last October.

The vote virtually guarantees that Johnson will remain in office until after the November election, unless there is a new flare-up of tensions within the party.

“Hopefully, this is the end of the personality politics and frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress. It’s unfortunate and not who we are as Americans. We are better than this. We need to go further,” Johnson said in a statement after the vote.

The overwhelming nature of the vote to keep Johnson in office represents a blow to Greene, who was booed in the House of Representatives as she attempted to unseat the president, whom she had been campaigning for weeks to remove. Only 11 House Republicans joined her candidacy, after former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called in a Truth Social post Wednesday night for a vote to reject Greene’s effort.

“If we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything!” Trump wrote. “Mike Johnson is a good man who is trying very hard. He would also like certain things to be done during the last two-month period, but we will do them together.”

Greene launched her effort to unseat Johnson after he allowed a House vote last month to provide $61 billion in U.S. security aid to Ukraine, which she and many pro-Trump Republicans have opposed. forcefully, pitting them against traditional party members who are tough on foreign affairs.

Greene hoped to replicate the successful October effort by hardline Republicans to unseat the previous president, Kevin McCarthy. But his effort failed because Democrats decided to reward Johnson for allowing a vote on one of President Joe Biden’s top legislative priorities with the vote in Ukraine.

Additionally, Greene was unable to create a groundswell of opposition to Johnson among Republicans, who hope to focus on the election to try to preserve their slim majority.