Posted on 05/01/2024 9:54:27 AM PDT by RandFan
MICHAEL WHATLEY, the newly installed RNC co-chair, had already briefed Greene’s fellow House Republicans on the importance of party unity that morning, but Greene didn’t show. He delivered his pointed message to her personally: Don’t move against Johnson.
“He said, one, this is not helpful, and two, we want to expand and grow the majority in the House,” said a person familiar with Whatley’s message to Greene. “He was clear that any disruption to the conference on these efforts — including filing this [motion to vacate], does not help the case for party unity.”
In another era, a directive from the top Republican party official certainly would not go unheeded by a House back-bencher. Even in this era, you would think Whatley’s status as DONALD TRUMP’s handpicked RNC steward would mean something to a MAGA acolyte.
But Greene disagreed with Whatley, arguing that the party had time to rebound from a leadership switch before the election. And she admitted she’d spoken to Trump himself earlier in the day — leaving the impression that the former president had told her much the same as Whatley had.
The truth was, Greene had backed herself into a corner, and this morning, she’s facing a potential lose-lose situation: back down and look squishy or stand firm and risk a break with Trump.
At 9 a.m. she’s holding a news conference with fellow Johnson critic THOMAS MASSIE (R-Ky.), and her fellow Republicans are bracing for her to announce a vote on Johnson’s gavel as soon as this afternoon. If so, expect a quick vote to table.
Already her threats have taken a toll on her standing within the House Republican conference, where more and more lawmakers are growing tired of her self-aggrandizing antics, as our colleagues Jordain Carney and Olivia Beavers write.
They note, for instance, that Greene’s latest push comes as the GOP tries to take advantage of the campus unrest to make a messaging push on antisemitism. But, they write, instead of “going on the offense by attacking Democrats for insufficiently condemning pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, Republicans are now bracing for Greene to drag them into another internal fight that most of them would rather delay until after Election Day.”
The bigger issue is that Greene is defying not just her House colleagues, but also Trump and his hand-picked deputy, who made yesterday’s unusual face-to-face appeal.
Whatley told Playbook in a statement that “nothing is more important than party unity and ensuring that we are focused on beating JOE BIDEN and Democrats in November.”
Others in the Trump-aligned orbit are annoyed, to put it mildly, at Greene’s lack of political discipline. Some noted that she’d kept quiet in recent days until House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES and other top Democrats made their backing of Johnson public yesterday morning — suggesting Greene got rope-a-doped into sparking another internecine fight.
“Fresh bait always finds a fish,” one senior GOP official told Playbook. “Jeffries throwing that out there, it’s chum in the water. Everyone knows what he did.”
Plus packing the Supreme Court with a few more far-left democrat judges, making D.C. a state, making vote harvesting and no ID voting mandatory nationwide, making abortions legal up to the date of birth, giving trannies the right to use women's bathrooms and join women's sports, making it illegal to block children from being sterilized and having their reproductive organs amputated in the name of "gender affirming care," and everything else on the democrats' wish list.
The democrats know that there is a good chance that Trump will be re-elected and Republicans will take back the Senate and the House in November. If they can take control of the House before then they will push through everything that they possibly can before the end of the year.
Good.
Under the Harry Reid Rule (formerly known as the Nuclear Option), the Senate can abolish the filibuster at any time with an affirmative vote of the majority of the Senators who are present.
I stand by what I said.
That din’t happen when the Dems had the House and Senate with 51 votes from 2021 to 2023.
Thanks for the reminder.
Who here trusts 51 senators not to deliver the final destructive votes to this country?
I agree and understand all the points you make as to why Jeffries should not be SOH.
But why? Why have the Rats said they will vote to KEEP Johnson?
My guess is they like him as a Useful Idiot. They like the internal fight this issue is causing Republicans.
Thoughts?
The Dems thought they had other ways to get Trump in '21 thru '23. Those things haven't worked. 2024 will be a year like no other.
If my memory is correct, Pelosi said they would save McCarthy. And then they didn't save him.
They do that, then the party kicks off early
.
The the party kicks off early. It’s coming anyway.
The flag waving pep rally showed how grateful they were to Johnson for backing down and capitulating on border security first! They owe him for his caving.
i find ironic that Thomas Massie was called all sorts of names, like rino .....etc when he endorsed desantis a while ago.
it feels like WWF where a face becomes a heel overnight and vice versa.
To remove Johnson, fund a primary challenge, and a Trump aligned RNC will begin doing these things after the election.
People, most of this was about the debt ceiling.
There is $36T of debt and the composite interest rate is 3.2% AND RISING. It doesn’t matter what is done in Congress. There is no fix for this.
NOTHING CAN BE DONE.
Get Trump elected and start attacking the Swamp. $36T precludes ANY AND ALL OTHER GOALS.
I’m so afraid that Trump has learned nothing.
Makes sense. Democrats lie. And if they figure out that getting rid of Johnson would be in their best interests, then he’ll be gone in a heartbeat.
Trump is running in the purple swing states to get enough votes counted properly to thwart fraud
Aligning himself with outlier MTG doesn’t help that
And I’m an MTG fanboy
Forget it Rand, it’s politics
True dat. But we’ve always had heroes and zeroes who are the same person.
Giuliani and Bush are examples.
If DeSantis does get the veep pick, then we’ll see such an about face here, it’ll make heads spin.
“I knew Trump would make the right call!”
Who knows, maybe Johnson will be a hero someday soon.
Fickle people, we are.
While you look at (study) my posting history, please link to where I said I supported the Colorado initiative to get rid of Trump.
This is the second time I’ve told you to do this. You won’t and you can’t. And haven’t I told you to tell us what else you think is wrong with Trump, besides his support of Johnson?
Do that too. Never Trumper.
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