‘Aren’t You Defying’ Trump? CNN’s Manu Raju Presses Marjorie Taylor Greene on Move to Oust Mike Johnson

CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju pressed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday over her plan to move forward to try and oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) – without the support of her party’s de facto leader, former President Donald Trump.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene said she will force a vote to oust the House speaker, Mike Johnson, as soon as next week. Let’s go live to CNN’s Manu Raju who was up on Capitol Hill for us. Manu, you were there at the press conference. I didn’t see a whole lot of members of Congress standing around Marjorie Taylor Greene. Does she think she can pull this off?” began CNN anchor Jim Acosta.

“There’s virtually no chance she can pull this off because of the decision by the Democratic leaders. Hakeem Jeffries announcing yesterday that they would support the effort to kill that resolution,” Raju reported, adding:

This is much different than what happened in the fall. Of course, at that time, this was led by Republicans to oust Kevin McCarthy. Eight Republicans voted to kick him out of the speakership, but then all Democrats did as well. But Democrats view this situation differently. And the aftermath of Mike Johnson cutting some deals to keep the government open and then providing aid for Ukraine, $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, all of which say that there is no reason for them to kick out Johnson at this time.

But it’s those same deals that have caused this anger among those far right Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who says that she does plan to call for this vote next week simply to put members on the record. Now, one question is, was, why is she moving forward with this? Because even despite Donald Trump suggesting he is not in favor of this at this time, I put that question to her at this press conference just moments ago.

The segment then cut to a clip of Raju questioning Greene at a Capitol Hill presser, “If this fails next week, as is expected, will you continue to try to force a vote on this issue? And two, former President Trump has said positive things about the speaker and has said he doesn’t favor a motion to vacate. Aren’t you defying the former president’s wishes?”

“Absolutely not,” hit back Greene, adding:

I’m the biggest supporter of President Trump, and that’s why I proudly wear this MAGA hat. I fight for his agenda every single day, and that’s why I’m fighting here against my own Republican conference to fight harder against the Democrat Mike Johnson who has fully funded the Department of Justice that wants to put President Trump in jail, giving him a death sentence.

Raju continued his report, noting, “And Mike Johnson just put out a statement saying, quote, ‘This motion is wrong for the Republican Congress conference, wrong for the institution and wrong for the country.’”

“We do expect, when this vote happens, that Republican leaders are going to move pretty quickly to actually take this up, essentially kill it, to try to move on past this episode,” Raju added, concluding:

And there really are no other major decisions coming down the pike that could put him in more hot water with his right flank. There is an effort they will have to keep the government open, but that’s not until the fall. So perhaps Mike Johnson could survive this threat because of the Democratic support and Republicans, many Republicans don’t want to go through that messy episode that happened last fall when McCarthy was ousted, and there are about three weeks of no speaker. The Republicans are battling each other. They’re hoping to move past this and focus on the election.

“She doesn’t have a whole lot of support in her party, but she does have a red hat,” Acosta quipped to end the report.

Watch the clip above via CNN.