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there it's the Mp Our Politics podcast. I'm

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Susan Davis. Think of our politics endured. Your

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was I cover Congress. And I'm Dominican months

0:59

narrow senior political editor and correspondent. And

1:01

as we're fond of saying on this

1:03

podcast, things have changed since the last

1:05

time you heard from Athens, Georgia. Republican

1:07

Congress woman Marjorie Taylor Green attempted to

1:09

force a vote that would remove Speaker

1:12

My Johnson from leadership. The most republicans

1:14

and some democrats voted to block it.

1:16

Deirdre Republicans used a procedural new something

1:18

that's known as a motion to table.

1:21

Basically just a sideline. This attempt breakdown

1:23

the vote for us. Yeah.

1:25

I mean, I think Republicans were expecting

1:27

this to come up because Marjorie Taylor

1:29

Green had been dangling this out there

1:31

for weeks and vowed that she would

1:33

force the vote this week. I don't

1:35

actually think they were expecting it to

1:38

come up to night. This happened sort

1:40

of in the middle of a series

1:42

of votes that we're going to the

1:44

last series for the week. They were

1:46

going to end the week early and

1:48

I think that's why Larger Taylor Green

1:50

decided to make her move. The procedural

1:52

motion to table was just to kill

1:54

her resolution to. Oust the speaker.

1:56

Democratic leaders already signalled they would

1:58

vote with Republican the table. Any

2:01

resolution to oust Johnson say made

2:03

good on that promise of the

2:05

vote was overwhelmingly to table the

2:07

resolution, it was three, fifty nine

2:10

to forty three. There were ten

2:12

other Republicans other than Marjorie Taylor

2:14

Green that wanted. To vote

2:16

to remove the speaker. That obviously

2:18

shows you. That. Johnson

2:20

needed democrats to remain speakers and

2:22

that's why she did this. To

2:25

make that point to who are

2:27

they? The group that voted with

2:29

Marjah Taylor Greens was a group

2:31

of, I would say, mostly hardline

2:33

conservative Republicans, a lot of them

2:35

members of the Freedom. Caucus.

2:37

Well, by my math, that means that

2:39

there were more republicans to vote to

2:42

house Johnson than there were to ask

2:44

Kevin Mccarthy as kind of fascinating. I

2:47

yeah, I think that's part of the

2:49

reason that Marjorie Taylor Green was trying

2:51

to argue that he isn't the conservative

2:54

speaker that he came in and argued

2:56

he would be to replace Mccarthy was

2:58

Speaker Johnson bespoke. after the. Vote Hopefully

3:01

this is the end of the

3:03

personality politics in the frivolous character

3:05

assassination that has defined One Hundred

3:07

and eighteenth Congress. But due to

3:09

the reality. Still exists right that any

3:11

one member at any time can continue to

3:14

force a vote. Just like this again. Correct.

3:17

and I don't think there's any

3:19

guarantee that Mars retailer Green or

3:22

someone in this group I'm. Will.

3:25

Stop doing this. I mean it

3:27

will sail. I guess the big

3:29

question that we had four Leader

3:31

Jeffries Hakeem Jeffries the minority leader

3:33

was, is this a one time

3:35

deal When he came out after

3:38

the vote tonight, he basically said,

3:40

you know they agreed to vote

3:42

for governing over chaos and he

3:44

said he hoped in November that

3:46

the voters would vacate Mega Republicans

3:48

from the house and he would

3:51

eventually end up becoming the speaker

3:53

of the house When Democrats. take

3:55

the majority after the elections

3:57

but he sidestepped several questions

3:59

about whether Democrats could end

4:01

up regretting bailing out

4:03

Johnson because Johnson right after the vote

4:05

said he has this conservative agenda that

4:07

he's moving forward on. And there are

4:09

a lot of things that he wants

4:11

to do, even though there's just six

4:13

months before the election that are things

4:16

that Democrats don't want to do. Domenico,

4:18

it is pretty stunning to watch what is

4:20

essentially a rank and file lawmaker. Marjorie Taylor

4:22

Greene gets a lot of attention because she's

4:25

very provocative, but she's a junior lawmaker not

4:27

only going up against her party leadership, but

4:29

very clearly going against the will of Donald

4:31

Trump, the presumptive nominee for president, who she

4:33

has been very loyal to in the past. Yeah,

4:36

just today, Trump put a

4:38

post out on Truth Social, his social

4:41

media platform, saying that it was not

4:43

the time to try to oust Johnson.

4:45

He said, I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor

4:47

Greene. She's got spirit, capital S. She's

4:49

got fight, capital F. And

4:52

I believe she'll be around and on our side

4:54

for a long time to come. However, right now,

4:56

Republicans have to be fighting radical left Democrats and

4:58

all the damage they've done to our country, et

5:01

cetera, et cetera, say now is not the right

5:03

time to go after Johnson. And that maybe at

5:05

some point it would be, but he doesn't

5:07

want it to hurt his election prospects overall.

5:09

And there are people who will say that

5:11

this election is about

5:13

sort of centrist mainstream politics

5:17

versus fringe and extreme. And whichever one,

5:20

whichever side can be pitted as most

5:22

polar, uh, will be the one that

5:24

loses. All right, let's take a quick break

5:26

and we'll talk more about what comes after this when we get back.

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ways to opt outside. And

7:00

we're back. And Domenico, on that

7:02

now outdated but very good podcast we

7:04

did earlier today on this exact situation,

7:06

we were talking about the broader point

7:08

that the House majority is very much

7:10

in play in November. And

7:12

politically, it would seem to be a bit of a

7:14

gift to Democrats who are trying to make the case

7:16

that they are the party that is more responsible at

7:18

the act of governing. Yeah, and you

7:21

have a, you know, speaker in waiting

7:23

and Hakeem Jeffries, whenever Democrats were to

7:25

take the majority, essentially saying that the

7:27

Democrats are running, essentially running the government

7:30

right now kind of boasting a little

7:32

bit over the weekend on 60 Minutes

7:34

saying that the party is essentially functioning

7:36

as the majority right now because Republicans

7:38

are so in chaos and not able

7:41

to get anything through on their own

7:43

that they need Democrats help. And

7:45

you saw that once again, with Jeffries here and the

7:48

Democrats kind of bailing out, Johnson, and

7:50

part of that has to be a

7:52

play politically to look like the kind

7:54

of party of normal and not the

7:56

party that's trying to continue to oust

7:58

speakers over and over again. and

8:00

try to paint themselves as trying to get things

8:02

done and aiming squarely at those swing districts for

8:05

that. But, dear Drew, Speaker Johnson is

8:07

still now the first

8:09

speaker, maybe ever, I can't say for certain

8:11

forever, but certainly at least since the World

8:13

War II era and the modern era, that

8:16

a speaker has had to rely on the

8:18

minority party to remain speaker. This is another

8:20

chapter in the we have never been here

8:22

before files and it's

8:25

pretty unprecedented and I think it's just worth

8:27

noting that he is a very different kind

8:29

of speaker now. Right, and he owes his

8:31

gavel right now to a lot of House

8:33

Democrats. I mean, I think the other thing

8:36

that I know we've talked about on this podcast too

8:38

is it's rare that the

8:40

speaker needs Democrats to essentially get

8:42

anything done. Often times when

8:45

he wants to bring up a bill,

8:47

he has to rely on Democrats and

8:49

clearly to pass any of the major

8:52

legislation to avoid a default, to avoid

8:54

a government shutdown, to fund Ukraine, he's

8:56

had to rely on Democrats. Do

8:59

you think he's weakened by this or was

9:01

he just by default already a fairly weak

9:03

speaker because of the narrow majority that he

9:06

has to rely on? I

9:08

think in the short term, he gained

9:10

some internal political capital

9:13

among House Republicans because

9:16

he was seen, I

9:18

think, by a lot of House Republicans

9:20

as standing up to Marjorie Taylor Greene

9:22

and I think a lot of House

9:24

Republicans have grown tired

9:27

of the media attention

9:30

and the fact that she's putting a

9:32

spotlight on chaos while they are just

9:34

trying to get things done in such

9:37

a tight majority and they're so worried

9:39

about holding onto their majority

9:41

in November. So I think he

9:43

gained some gravitas among

9:45

his colleagues. In the long

9:48

term, I think he's weakened because as

9:50

you said, this is unprecedented. He had

9:52

to rely on Democrats and I

9:55

Would guess that Marjorie Taylor Greene will continue

9:57

to remind the Republican base about that. If

10:01

he's able to continue to

10:03

move ahead and isolates that

10:05

group of his conference, it

10:07

could give him some more

10:09

confidence to keep the job.

10:11

But I already there have

10:14

been house republicans questioning whether

10:16

Johnson could keep the gavel

10:18

after that. Successful. Effort

10:20

to throw out Kevin Mccarthy a speaker

10:22

do so much bad blood within that

10:24

conference. There were so many hard feelings,

10:26

people really angry that argued some of

10:28

them are still angry. Do you feel

10:31

like this action is going to sort

10:33

of recheck up that anger within the

10:35

conference, especially from those members who actually

10:37

do face competitive election challenges in November.

10:39

I think that kicks up or anger

10:41

at Marjorie Taylor Green. I mean, there

10:44

was a lot of venting. just sort

10:46

of like you know this is, shows

10:48

were not one big happy family we

10:50

Wanna win in November indices and helping

10:52

us mean there was a lot of

10:54

venting about. The message that

10:56

this sense and obviously Dominica mentioned.

10:59

Former. President Trump has those concerns. Too

11:01

many good You see any political winners

11:04

here? I mean, you could argue that

11:06

this is still a winner. for Marjorie

11:08

Taylor Green. It's written her profile and

11:10

away and with audiences that she does

11:12

like to curry favor with. But beyond

11:14

that, any big winners here. Given,

11:17

I think that it isolates her a little

11:19

bit more to from her conference and he

11:21

or she shot or shot and now what

11:23

so she doesn't have as much juice internally

11:25

I think today as she did yesterday and

11:28

I think that that's going to be a

11:30

problem in the eyes of someone like Donald

11:32

Trump's You know, while he may have some

11:34

warm feelings for mergers, Hillary and likes her

11:36

filings her spirit like he says, he doesn't

11:38

want this to come back on him. And

11:41

if this does come back on him because

11:43

of the chaos that continues to ensue are

11:45

within the Republican party. and marge retailer

11:47

green continues to be the face in some

11:49

respects of the republican party's the nets bad

11:51

for donald trump and his prospects at winning

11:54

this fall and really that's all that matters

11:56

to him is how he winds up looking

11:58

out of all of this regard of

12:00

who the other players are. I do think that

12:02

Johnson and Democrats, you know, in the short term,

12:04

Johnson for sure, you know, gets a little bit

12:07

of a win. This is now passed. And

12:09

it's going to take another effort to try to

12:11

take him out. And I think Democrats, you know,

12:13

have a little bit of leverage, although I am

12:16

wondering what they're going to be trying to push

12:18

for Ukraine funding or otherwise, even more as

12:20

we head toward election day. All right, that is

12:22

it for us tonight. There'll be more on

12:25

this on morning edition, you can check that

12:27

out on your local NPR station. I'm Susan

12:29

Davis, I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh, I

12:31

cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Muntiner, our

12:33

senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks

12:35

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