House Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to listen to a GOP colleague’s attack on him in a toe-curling segment live on CNN.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and MAGA diehard, has made a habit of lashing out at her own party, fueled by the idea that it has gone against its ‘America First’ ethos. Earlier this month, Greene also trashed “weak” men in the GOP, and regularly focuses her ire on Johnson.
In a tirade against him on Wednesday, she said: “Speaker Johnson said he has ideas and pages of policy, but did not say a single policy plan.”
“I find it unacceptable that Republicans are sitting on the sidelines doing nothing to fix this healthcare disaster that is leading many Americans into financial ruin.”
On CNN Wednesday night, The Source host Kaitlan Collins read the X post out to a sullen-faced Johnson who sported the same expression he did when he went on C-SPAN earlier this month for a live call-in in which he was berated by the public.
“Well, bless her heart,” he replied, finding the energy to swipe back at Greene. “That’s an absurd statement. Obviously, these conference calls are monitored by the media, so we’re not gonna have actual strategy discussions on a line where you have hundreds of people listening in because it would be reported on the front page. We have been working on this for a long time. We worked on it today. We’ve been working on it every day. Marjorie is not here in Washington.”
He then tried to blame the shutdown on the Democrats before Collins dutifully steered the conversation back to healthcare.
“Speaker, she’s saying that the Republicans aren’t doing anything to address the healthcare issue here that Democrats are arguing about,” the host said. “Are you saying that there is a Republican plan and you’re just not talking about it?”
“No, I’m saying there’s lots of discussion about it, but we don’t really lay it on a conference call with hundreds of people listening in,” Johnson said. “We have many ideas on how to bring down the cost of healthcare to continue to do that, and we’ve already demonstrated it in the working families tax cut. We had real reforms to Medicaid that you and I have discussed that have brought down the cost and saved about $185 billion for taxpayers…”
Last week, Greene lashed out at Johnson once more, claiming that he had dodged questions about a Republican lawmaker accused of harassing his former girlfriend. The speaker said he would rather “talk about something serious” than address the restraining order issued against Florida Rep. Cory Mills. “They expelled George Santos, Mike Johnson did. He was speaker and oversaw George Santos being expelled. Why isn’t he doing anything about Cory Mills?” Greene told Axios.
Greene continued her attack on Johnson in the same interview over his handling of the government shutdown.
“Republicans have no plan,” Greene told Axios. “Mike Johnson has not had a single conference meeting about any sort of plan to deal with the ACA tax credits expiring.”
“If me saying those things is considered breaking with my party, then what is the Republican Party?” she added.
Elsewhere, she also offered an update on another of her crusades against her own party, the full release of files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Greene has joined forces with Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a longtime GOP rebel, to try to compel the Department of Justice to release all information it has on the billionaire financier via a discharge petition.
She said most of her Republican colleagues avoid demanding the release of the Epstein files for fear of being “yelled at by the president” or “iced out by leadership.”
The post CNN Host Forces Mike Johnson to Listen to MTG Trash Him appeared first on The Daily Beast.
