Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took shots at Fox News over how the network covered her motion to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week.
After putting pressure on Johnson for weeks, Greene brought a motion to vacate the speaker chair to the House floor on Wednesday, which was met with boos and heckling from both sides of the aisle. Lawmakers voted to table Greene’s measure immediately after she called her motion privileged. That action passed with a 359-43 vote.
Speaking on Friday with Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist for ex-President Donald Trump, Greene rebuked the members of the GOP who voted against her motion to vacate and repeated her criticisms of Johnson. The speaker has faced backlash from a handful of Republican House members for working across the aisle to pass federal spending bills.
Greene and Bannon also took aim at Fox News, pointing to analysis by CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy that found that the right-leaning network “offered only passing coverage” of the House’s vote on the motion to vacate. Other major networks, such as CNN and MSNBC, “offered far more robust live coverage,” according to Darcy’s editorial piece.
“You got to remember Fox News that literally fired Tucker Carlson, the number one cable TV news host in the nation,” Greene told Bannon, who asked the congresswoman about her thoughts about how Fox News covered her motion. “Tucker, who was basically the voice of everyone, that’s the Fox News that refused to cover me calling the motion to vacate.”
Carlson was abruptly let go from Fox News in April 2023 after hosting his primetime talk show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, for six years. He has continued to produce commentary on his own platform, the Tucker Carlson Network, although some of his interviews have created controversy.
“Fox News wants to control what Republican voters think and the control and the information that they give you is the establishment Republican Party view, the Bush view, the Cheney view, the same view that led us into the Iraq War claiming that there was weapons of mass destruction,” Greene continued.
“…And that’s why Fox News attacks Steve Bannon. That’s why Fox News attacks Charlie Kirk, and that’s why Fox News would love to murder Tucker Carlson, and that’s the reality. And that’s why Fox News is losing viewers because I think you guys are smart.”
When reached for comment regarding Greene’s statement, a spokesperson for Fox News told Newsweek that the network closed out the month of April “as the highest-rated cable news network and delivered double- and triple-digit advantages over CNN and MSNBC in primetime and total day.” The spokesperson also directed Newsweek to a previous press release that pointed to data collected from Nielsen Media Research.
Greene’s motion against Johnson has been condemned by several of her Republican colleagues, including South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson, who told reporters on the steps of the Capitol building before the House voted to strike down Greene’s measure that the congresswoman was throwing a “tantrum”.
“Most of us by the time we turn 12 years old figured out the tantrums don’t actually work, but apparently not everybody in Congress got the memo,” Johnson said.
New York Republican Representative Mike Lawler added during the press briefing, “Moscow Marjorie has clearly gone off the deep end, maybe the result of a space laser. But this type of tantrum is absolutely unacceptable, and it does nothing to further the cause of the conservative movement.”
Trump, a close ally of Greene, also said in a post to Truth Social Wednesday evening that the GOP was “not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate.”
“We are leading in the Presidential Polls by a lot, both Nationally and in the Swing States,” Trump continued. “Likewise, we are doing well in the Senate, and I believe will do well in the House. But if we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything!”
