Marjorie Taylor Greene Slams Speaker Johnson over Border Issue

Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken aim at Speaker Mike Johnson after several migrants were filmed being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Responding to a clip of a Fox News correspondent's report on a team of "elite Boston based ICE deportation officers as they arrested four alleged child rapists & a violent MS-13 gang member in a single morning," Greene posted on X: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing. Speaker Johnson completely surrendered all power we had in the House to stop horrendous crimes like child rape by illegals when he fully funded Biden's deadly open border without a fight."

The Georgia Representative has been vocal regarding migrants coming into the U.S., something she has accused Johnson of helping facilitate due to his role in the passing of a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending bill that has been met with considerable ire from hard-right Republicans.

The bill covered $650 million in funding for Homeland Security's Shelter and Services program that reimburses local governments for looking after migrants, one of many elements of the bill Greene has openly opposed. Newsweek has contacted Greene's team for comment via email.

Greene also took issue with Johnson working with Democrats to get the funding pushed through before its deadline, so much so that in March she filed a motion for Johnson to vacate the speakership.

At the time, she said the motion was "not personal". "He's a very good man. And I have respect for him as a person. But he is not doing the job," she told reporters.

Johnson has since said he has plans to talk with Green over their disagreements. "Look, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed the motion. It's not a privilege motion so it doesn't move automatically. It's just hanging there. And she's frustrated. She and I exchanged text messages even today. We're going to talk early next week," Johnson said in an interview on Fox News's Sunday Night in America.

He also described Greene as a "friend" and said they shared similar concerns.

"She's very frustrated about, for example, the last appropriations bills. Guess what? So am I," he said. "These are not the perfect pieces of legislation that you and I and Marjorie would draft if we had the ability to do it differently. But with the smallest margin in US history, we're sometimes going to get legislation that we don't like."

Greene previously supported Johnson as Speaker following the ousting of Kevin McCarthy late in 2023. She was not among those Republicans who voted to remove him. Johnson was elected to the speakership on October 25.

The motion Greene filed in March is the same process by which McCarthy was removed, although that motion to vacate was filed by Florida Republican Matt Gaetz.

X user Burt Macklin drew attention to a previous tweet by Greene in which she endorsed Johnson for the speakership. "Mike has a conservative voting record and has committed to helping me move important legislation forward," she wrote in a post from October 2023.