MTG demanded Johnson defund Jack Smith and abandon Ukraine in contentious meeting: report

Rebellious Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reportedly laid out her demands to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) during a contentious meeting about her efforts to get him ousted from his position.

Punchbowl News reports that Greene made a number of asks during a meeting with Johnson that included a guarantee that he would not pass more military aid for Ukraine, a pledge to defund special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutions of President Donald Trump, and that "Johnson only advance legislative priorities that have the support of the majority of the majority — an adherence to the so-called Hastert Rule."

The report then goes through each one of these demands and explains why they are unlikely to be met, especially the demand of defund Smith, which would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled United States Senate.

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"Yet Greene doesn’t really see those political realities as hurdles — or care," notes Punchbowl News. "She wants to cause legislative crises and get media coverage."

The report goes on to state that Greene has been "holding open the possibility of triggering the motion to vacate this week if Johnson doesn’t accede to these demands," although that motion would also be doomed to fail given that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has already pledged to support tabling Greene's motion.

All the same, the report states that Greene would be doing a Democrats a "huge favor" by not putting them in a position to have to save Johnson's job.

"The decision to save Johnson isn’t playing very well in the House Democratic Caucus," Punchbowl News notes. "Most Democrats aren’t psyched to keep a Republican speaker in place — especially because the GOP would never return the favor under any circumstance."

Johnson first rose to the speakership last year after a small band of rebel Republicans voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker last year.

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