Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has been at odds with her party in recent weeks, said Wednesday she yelled at House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) over the “utter failure” of keeping the House out of session.
“The fact that the House has been closed for six weeks now is a complete and total utter failure,” Greene told NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill,” in a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
“And that’s on the Speaker of the House. While the rest of America’s going to work every single day, you’re going to work, people in this building are going to work, Mike Johnson is telling us to stay home and not do our jobs.”
Burman asked Greene what she would tell Johnson.
“Tell him the same thing I told him last weekend, I yelled at him on the phone on our GOP conference call,” she replied.
“What did you say?” Burman asked
“Is that is, ‘Where is our health care plan? It’s nonexistent. Democrats created this problem years ago, but Republicans have never fixed it.’ And I said, ‘We need to be back at work and not being in session is basically pathetic.’”
Anxiety among House Republicans has increased as they navigate how to make up last time as Johnson keeps the House out of session amid the ongoing government shutdown.
On Thursday, Johnson said he would not allow Democrats a vote in the House on extending expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies in a deal to bring about the shutdown’s end.
Greene has pressed her party on health care in recent weeks, saying in early October that “the issues of the subsidies are real.”
“It’s not something that anybody can say is made up,” Greene said at the time. “Also, people with regular or private plans, their premiums are looking to go up a median of 18 percent. That’s brutal.”
When reached for comment, Johnson’s office noted comments from the Speaker in which he said he was “not unaccustomed to hearing criticism from Marjorie.”
“We have intense fellowship as we say in the deep south, Stephen. She knows I’ve got an open door. She can come in and talk with me anytime,” Johnson told sports media personality Stephen A. Smith in a recent interview.
