Greene risks war with evangelicals while ramping up attacks on Mike Johnson

Marjorie Taylor Greene lost her battle to vacate the speaker’s chair last week. But her civil war against Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t letting up, and the crusade could strain her relationship with the evangelicals with whom she’s typically aligned. 

Greene has been going off on Johnson throughout the week, bashing his photo-op at Donald Trump’s hush money trial and claiming Johnson should have remained in Washington to act on right-wing priorities — such as defunding special counsel Jack Smith. (It’s worth pausing a moment to think about the layers of irony in that argument.)

In the video below, posted on social media platform X, Greene claimed Johnson “shouldn’t be speaker of the House” if he doesn’t follow through on the list of demands she gave him last week:

But Greene’s ongoing feud with Johnson could create fissures in the evangelical movement. 

Last month, as Greene tried to build momentum to oust Johnson, MSNBC columnist Sarah Posner explained that the Georgia representative failed to turn conservative evangelicals against the speaker. Posner noted that Johnson made public appearances on conservative, Christian-owned media platforms — such as the network run by the Family Research Council — and flexed his enduring evangelical support.

And ahead of last week’s motion to vacate, that support was far from silent. As Baptist News reported this week, evangelical groups such as the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America helped power the chorus of right-wing, Christian faithful who supported Johnson and bashed Greene in a failed attempt to dissuade her from introducing her motion to vacate.  

“It was the right move for the U.S. House to table the motion to vacate the speakership,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote on X after Greene’s motion failed. “The immediate action puts this behind the House and enables them to move forward with the work that needs to be done.”

It was a view shared by many evangelicals — and Trump, too.

Judging by Greene’s behavior this week, I’m not sure she got the message. And if she doesn’t get it soon, she may find herself in hot water with a crucial part of the Republican base.