Speaker Johnson says conversations with Greene ‘not a negotiation’

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday dismissed the notion that he is negotiating with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as she threatens to force a vote on his impeachment, characterizing the meeting of the the previous day as an ordinary conversation to hear the Georgia Republican’s ideas.

Johnson met with Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who introduced a motion to remove the House speaker’s gavel — for about two hours on Monday, and they are scheduled to reconvene for another discussion in the early afternoon of Tuesday.

The meetings come after Greene and Massie announced last week that they would force a vote on Johnson’s removal this week. The resolution will almost certainly fail due to opposition from Republicans and conservative Democrats, but the vote would still risk putting Johnson in the tenuous position of being a Republican president supported by Democrats.

Johnson argued Tuesday that his meetings with Greene and Massie are similar to other discussions he has had with Republican lawmakers during various legislative fights in the six months since he won the presidency.

“Yesterday I met with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. It was a good discussion, I found it productive. We will visit again today. It’s not a negotiation,” Johnson said. “This is how I act as a spokesperson. I committed to doing this before I became speaker of the House and we have been doing this for the last six months.”

“What I do every day, Scott, is, almost hourly, listen to suggestions, ideas and thoughts from members. My door has been open since day one, everyone knows that, I mean I spend endless hours on it. There is nothing unusual about that,” he later added. “I listened to Marjorie and Thomas’ ideas, just as I have listened to others every day for the past six months.”

Greene publicly presented four demands to Johnson before their Tuesday afternoon meeting: only introduce bills that have the support of a majority of the GOP conference, a practice known as the Hastert rule; commit not to approve any additional aid to Ukraine; shell out special counsels, including Jack Smith, who is investigating former President Trump; and imposing a one percent cut on the entire congressional board does not complete its regular appropriations process until September 30th.

During an interview with Steve Bannon on his “War Room” podcast on Tuesday, the Georgia Republican said her path forward on the vacate motion will depend on how Johnson reacts to her requests.

“What I demand is simple: we need to act like Republicans. We need to demand control and stop the government from being used for political purposes. This is not difficult. This is not complicated. And we’ll see how that meeting goes,” Greene said. “I have high expectations and they have to be fully met. There’s no middle ground, there’s no compromise, and Steve, we’ll see what he can do.”

Greene left Monday’s meeting refusing to say when — or if — she planned to force a vote on Johnson’s removal, a change of tone from last week, when she said she would “absolutely” call her removal resolution to the plenary.

Her comments, list of demands and the fact that she requested Monday’s meeting with Johnson signaled that she is considering an exit.

Johnson said Tuesday he is listening to the pair’s requests.

“I accept ideas from Marjorie and Thomas and everyone else equally, and we evaluate them for their own value, and where we can make improvements and changes and everything we do. And that’s what it is,” he said Tuesday. “There’s nothing more than that going on.”