Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion Friday to oust Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who has been in the role for five months since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by the most conservative members of his caucus. Jimmy Fallon joked that Greene can’t fill the role herself because “she’s too busy being the House screamer.”
“After the House passed the bipartisan bill to fund the government and avert a shutdown, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove Mike Johnson as House Speaker,” Fallon began. “Marjorie made the decision after listening to her colleagues, constituents, and Zoltron, Supreme Leader of Glargnak 6.” He tagged the joked by adding, “It lives in Canada, goes to a different school. You probably don’t know it.”
Greene opted to file the shot at Johnson as a regular motion, which means it will need to go to committee before it could be voted upon. Had she filed it as a privileged motion, it would have been voted on within two legislative days.
Greene admitted to reporters that she hoped the filing would serve as a warning to Johnson. She said, “I’m not saying that it won’t happen in two weeks or it won’t happen in a month or who knows when. But I am saying the clock has started. It’s time for our conference to choose a new speaker.”
As of Friday, the House went on a two-week recess, so the earliest the motion will likely be considered is April 9.
NBC News reported that Rep. Matt Gaetz, who introduced the motion to oust McCarthy, disagrees with Greene’s motion.
“If we vacated this speaker, we’d end up with a Democrat,” Gaetz said. “When I vacated the last one, I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with the Democrat speaker. And I was right. I couldn’t make that promise again.”
That’s due to how difficult it was to land on Johnson before — given another round of votes, it’s possible that Democrats would be able to land enough support to get a compromise member of their own into the position.
Watch Jimmy Fallon’s joke in the video above.
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