Greene says Gaetz, 7 other colleagues need to apologize to ‘heal the conference’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and the seven other Republicans who voted to boot former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to apologize in order to “heal the conference.”

“So we’re gonna have to get back in the room and see who’s willing to run and be a candidate for Speaker,” she said Tuesday on Fox Business’s “Kudlow.”

“But I also hope that the eight Republicans who joined the Democrats and ousted Kevin McCarthy, they need to apologize, and we need to heal our conference in order to move forward,” she said.

The House is expected to hold a floor vote Wednesday on a new Speaker. Republicans, after Greene’s remarks, voted Tuesday night to put forward Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as their fourth candidate for the Speaker.

Johnson was nominated after the previous nominee, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), bowed out amid a conservative revolt. Emmer did not get a vote on the floor.

Some Republicans are expressing optimism that Johnson could be the one to reach 217 votes needed to fill the Speaker’s seat after three weeks of it being vacant.

Greene was a staunch ally of McCarthy when he was running for the Speakership in January and has been outspoken in criticizing the move to oust him. Gaetz spearheaded the effort to take away McCarthy’s gavel after months of threatening to do so and was one of the eight Republicans who sided with Democrats to remove him from the Speakership.

Over the past few weeks, Greene had endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who lost a House floor vote three times. She opposed Emmer as Speaker, saying she liked him personally but could not back his voting record.

Greene suggested Tuesday that the GOP may need to go through multiple rounds of ballots to get the change she says the country needs.

“I’d like to remind everyone with a history lesson back in 1855. The Congress went two months with 133 ballots trying to elect a Speaker of the House,” she said. “Maybe that’s what we go through again, because I think and I would argue the GOP is going through a big change, and it needs to be an America First change. That’s what Republican voters want, and that’s what the American people want and that’s what our country needs.”