Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s revolt against House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is simply an attention-seeking move, her colleague Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said Wednesday.
Greene initiated her public break with Johnson last month by filing a motion to remove him as speaker—less than six months since he took over from Kevin McCarthy, who was similarly ousted.
On Tuesday, Greene followed up by writing a letter to her GOP colleagues accusing Johnson of a “complete and total surrender” to Democrats due to his role in funding a laundry list of right-wing buzzwords, including “abortion, the trans agenda, the climate agenda, foreign wars, and Biden’s border crisis.”
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The pair met on Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol, the Associated Press reported, with Greene saying their talk was “direct and passionate.”
Despite this, Crenshaw described Greene’s motivations as vain, and doubted that her calls for Johnson’s removal would be successful.
“Right now, I’m not sure that there’s a real appetite by enough people to just oust Speaker Johnson. I think some people want, you know, a little bit of fame, a little bit of attention. That’s usually the kind of antics we see up here,” Crenshaw began on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, without mentioning Greene specifically.
“But look, Johnson’s got a tough needle to thread on a lot of very, very tough issues. And he’s just got to do it,” he continued, referencing how the House—in a “major failure”—wasn’t able to reauthorize the section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners for national security reasons.
Greene wants to change the legislation to require a warrant. Donald Trump also opposes the legislation in its current form.
When Cavuto asked about Greene’s actions toward Johnson in particular, Crenshaw reiterated his prior explanation.
“Like I said, for attention,” he replied. “I mean, I’m not sure what the other possibility would be. I mean, we’ve got to this point in our politics where anytime you disagree with somebody, you have to push them off a cliff, which is a pretty absurd tactic,” he said, adding that he doesn’t believe Johnson should go.
“But that’s, I guess, become the norm in D.C. And the unfortunate reality is that too many people actually cheer it on,” he added. “There is an incentive structure in place to actually do that, so I think that’s why it happens. But is there real support for it? I’m not seeing that right now.”
As for Greene, her office responded to Crenshaw’s Fox appearance by accusing him of the charge he leveled at her.
The Georgia congresswoman’s office told The Hill that Crenshaw “went on TV, attacked MTG knowing it would get headlines like this one (aka attention).”
