House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) job appears to be in real peril as Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has now picked up a third cosponsor to vacate his chair.
Politico's Olivia Beavers reports that Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has now jumped in to back Greene's effort to remove Johnson as speaker, making him the third Republican to back the measure after Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).
What makes this potentially troublesome for Johnson is that none of these three Republicans voted last year to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), although some of the Republicans who did back that measure, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) have said they do not support the current effort to remove Johnson.
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All the same, three defections on the Republican side means that Johnson will at least need some Democrats to vote against the measure in order to avoid suffering the same fate as McCarthy.
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On that front, at least two Democrats -- Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) -- have pledged to support Johnson as speaker to avoid a repeat of the weeks of chaos that followed McCarthy's ouster last year, when Republicans went through several failed speaker candidates including Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Tom Emmer (R-MN) before finally settling on Johnson.
Greene has long been perturbed by Johnson's willingness to put a vote to send military aid to Ukraine on the floor of the House of Representatives, as she has even gone so far as to repeat Russian propaganda about Ukrainians being "Nazis" who are waging a "war on Christianity" to justify her opposition.
Greene and Gosar have long been ideological allies, as they both spoke at a conference hosted by white nationalists back in 2022.
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