Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to make House speaker a lame duck

House Speaker Mike Johnson has been valiantly trying to downplay fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ongoing threats to oust him after he dared to work with lawmakers across the aisle to avert a government shutdown. Johnson’s response to these threats seems to be deepening problems in his conference, which doesn’t bode well for his future as GOP leader. “Marjorie’s a friend,” Johnson insisted over the weekend on Trey Gowdy’s Fox News show. “She’s very frustrated about, for example, the last appropriations bills. Guess what? So am I,” he said. “She and I exchanged text messages even today.” Greene is having absolutely none of Johnson’s attempts to appease her.  “I haven't talked to him on the phone one time,” the Georgia representative told Politico Tuesday. The frenemies are expected to talk Friday, and Greene has launched a media blitz to set the narrative ahead of that chat, painting Johnson deeper into a corner over the issue of Ukraine. Johnson intends to put some kind of aid package on the floor next week, and he knows he will have to rely on Democratic votes to get it passed. That’s where Greene’s attacks come in. “This isn’t a Republican speaker we have right now; this is a Democrat speaker,” Greene told Tucker Carlson. “There is zero daylight between what Nancy Pelosi did … and what Mike Johnson is doing. … We don’t know who Mike Johnson is anymore.”  "Mike Johnson has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for to the point where people are literally asking, 'Is he blackmailed? What is wrong with him?' Because he is completely disconnected from what we want," Greene continued. Then she went to CNN, calling his proposal for a loan to Ukraine a “heaping, steaming pile of bullshit” that is “so insulting to the American people.”   “People are fed up with Republicans that say one thing and turn around and literally join the flock and just continue the same old crap everybody’s tired of,” Greene said. “And here, Mike Johnson, he’s literally turned into Mitch McConnell’s twin and worse. He’s a Democrat.” That’s going to be a fun talk between the two on Friday. Meanwhile, even the non-MAGA contingent of House Republicans is getting disillusioned with Johnson. They want him to take Greene on, Politico reports.  One Republican said that Johnson miscalculated by not forcing a vote on Greene’s proposed motion to vacate the chair before the House went on recess last month. That would have “shown leadership and strength,” the member said, and “left a good number of people like me say[ing], ‘OK, this guy’s got some balls.’” Now they’re looking at Johnson, his continued and future reliance on Democrats to get anything done, and the very real likelihood that Democrats will regain the House in November—and they are pissed.  “What’s he going to say? ‘Oh, shucks, guys … I ran everything through suspension and lost the majority, and I still want to be your leader’?” the same GOP member told Politico. “That’s not going to be tolerated.” The reality is that Johnson is going to have to keep working with Democrats to fund Ukraine, and to get anything else accomplished. His looming one-vote majority cements that. Case in point: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has been publicly heckling Johnson and retweeting Greene’s attacks. If Greene decides to activate her resolution after April 19, when GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin is quitting Congress, then the threat of Massie joining Greene’s campaign to oust Johnson becomes very real.  Any move Johnson makes right now means more Republicans are likely to get fed up and join Greene. “I can tell you this for sure: If there is a motion and Democrats jump in to support Johnson, that greatly diminishes him because then he’ll immediately become the ‘uniparty’ speaker,” a senior House Republican and Johnson ally  told Politico. “Everything would be run on suspension because people would take down rules—or they’ll do continuous motions to vacate.” Republicans are already telling reporters they don’t expect to keep the majority after November, and the whispers about ditching Johnson as their leader are getting louder. Johnson’s fellow Republicans could essentially make him a lame duck speaker seven months before the election. RELATED STORIES: Another resignation means the House GOP's margin for error will shrink even faster The House GOP can't even go on vacation without fighting Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens to oust new House speaker for ... reasons Florida's Supreme Court just greenlit a ballot measure to enshrine abortion in the state constitution—and simultaneously allowed the GOP's new six-week abortion ban to become law. That makes the already-high stakes for this amendment even higher, as we discuss on this week's episode of The Downballot. Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also talk about the death of New Jersey's infamous "county line" and how the GOP managed to pick yet another whackjob candidate for ye