Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Tuesday continued to rail against Republican leadership’s approach to the government shutdown.
Over the 28 days the government has been closed, Greene has accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of not having a healthcare plan ready to end the shutdown and urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to open the government by invoking the so-called nuclear option in the upper chamber.
She vented those concerns again in angry posts to X this week, saying during a call Johnson held with Republican lawmakers, he failed to outline “what the Republican plan for healthcare is to build the off-ramp off Obamacare and the ACA tax credits to make health insurance affordable for Americans.”
Democrats are blocking Johnson’s continuing resolution to open the government because it doesn’t extend Obamacare subsidies. The speaker has said he’s ready to bring the House back in session to negotiate healthcare reforms, but only after Democrats back the “clean” continuing resolution and end the shutdown.
But Greene said Johnson “said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call.”
“I have no respect for the House not being in session passing our bills and the President’s executive orders,” Greene added Tuesday, later complaining that she was muted during the call, a point pushed back on by leadership.
Johnson has firmly rejected Greene’s arguments that he doesn’t have a healthcare proposal ready. He said during a CNN interview last Wednesday that he could unveil proposals “tonight” if the government opened up. The reason he said he hasn’t shared details of such plans during calls with lawmakers and his GOP conference is that it would be shared with the media and undermine negotiations with Democrats.
“We don’t relay it on a conference call with hundreds of people listening in,” Johnson said on Oct. 22. “Obviously, these conference calls are monitored by media, so we’re not going to have actual strategy discussions on a line where you have hundreds of people listening in, because it would be reported on the front page. We have been working on this for a long time. We worked on it today. We’ve been working on it every day. Marjorie is not here in Washington. She’s not on the committees of jurisdiction, and she’s not involved in those specific discussions.”
Pressure is increasing on both parties to crack as one of the longest shutdowns on record heads into its fourth week.
After Senate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon blocked the House-passed continuing resolution for the 13th time, Vice President JD Vance told reporters that the administration is “trying to keep as much open as possible, and we’re exploring all options” during the government shutdown, including ensuring that critical food benefits are funded and that the military gets paid.
“But you know what would make this really easy? If the Democrats just opened up the government,” Vance said. “Then we wouldn’t have to play this game.”
In the Senate, Thune needs only five more Democrats to join Republicans to pass the continuing resolution and open the government, a point Vance stressed.
STATES SCRAMBLE TO ADDRESS LAPSE IN SNAP FUNDING DURING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Vance said he and Senate Republicans discussed “strategies for moving those five votes” during a meeting on Tuesday.
“We need five Democrats to just do it, to just stop arguing about whether to reopen the government or not and just do it,” he said.