Chris Crucial: The irresistible nonsense of Marjorie Taylor Greene

PLUS: Another House resignation!

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1. MTG’s performance art: Today around noon, the news broke. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had filed a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson — the same mechanism that led to the ouster of Kevin McCarthy earlier this year.

That legislative maneuver led to this scene outside the Capitol building:

Which is, of course, exactly what Greene wants — and why she did it in the first place. She is a problem product of the modern attention economy. Attention is the point. Fame — or even infamy! — is the goal.

How do I know? There are two hints — offered by Greene herself.

First, she didn’t make the resolution privileged, which would have forced an immediate vote. Instead, she just dropped this turd in the punch bowl (sorry!) and then headed out of town for a two-week Congressional break.

That’s two weeks where she can go on conservative TV and radio touting her motion to vacate. Two weeks where she can raise money off the move. Two weeks where she can further polish her #brand.

Second, Greene didn’t (and almost certainly won’t) offer up someone who she thinks SHOULD be Speaker. She just wants to blow things up, not fix things. Because blowing stuff up is what the Trumpist Republican base wants these days.

If Greene cared about the broader GOP — she does not — it makes ZERO strategic sense to spend even a second trying to get rid of Johnson amid the 2024 campaign.

Johnson has been on the job for five months. He has a two-seat majority. He knows that shutting down the government would be politically disastrous for his side. (MTG’s motion to vacate followed a vote to keep the government open — and funded — through September that passed thanks to Democratic votes.)

There is no one — NOT ONE PERSON — in the Republican party who could make this House work better. (And, yes, that includes Donald Trump.) But, again, Greene (and her ilk) have zero interest in the House working. Or even the Republican party being successful at the ballot box.

Greene is interested — solely and completely — in becoming as famous as she can. That’s all she cares about. And her actions — including this motion to vacate — prove it.

2. Another one bites the dust 🤯: Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, who had previously announced plans to retire at the end of this Congress, said Friday he would instead be resigning next month.

Gallagher will officially leave the House April 19. When he does, Republicans will go from being able to lose two of their own members on any vote to being able to lose just one.

The timing of Gallagher’s resignation means that there will not be a special election to replace him. Instead the seat will be vacant until the voters choose the next member from the district in the general election in November. (As NBC News noted: “Under Wisconsin state law, vacancies after the second Tuesday in April are filled in the general election.”)

That, um, did not sit well with some hardcore MAGA types. Here’s Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, on Gallagher’s resignation:

Which, whoa!

Gallagher has pissed off Trump acolytes before; he was one of only three House Republicans to vote against the GOP’s initial attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Gallagher was once regarded as a rising star within the GOP. His decision to retire (and now resign) is rightly seen as a reaction to the dominance of Trump within the GOP.

3. Donald Trump just got a LOT richer 💰💰💰: Amid ongoing questions of how he will pay the $454 million penalty for decades of inflating his assets in New York State, the former president got some very good financial news Friday: Truth Social, his social media platform, became a public company.

As the New York Times wrote of Truth Social’s parent company:

Trump Media & Technology Group is poised to debut on Wall Street at a market value of around $5 billion — based on the $37 share price of its merger partner, Digital World Acquisition Corp. Given that Mr. Trump owns more than 60 percent of the company, his overall net worth will increase by $3 billion — instantly doubling his wealth from the $2.6 billion estimate by Forbes magazine in October.

While this is a significant financial windfall for Trump, it’s not clear how quickly he can use his newfound wealth to pay off his various legal penalties. Again, the Times is useful here: “Mr. Trump is unlikely to be able to quickly turn it into cash because of restrictions in the merger agreement that prevent major shareholders from selling shares for at least six months, or using them as collateral for loans.”

Prior to the Truth Social news, Trump was on, uh, Truth Social where he insisted that “THROUGH HARD WORK, TALENT, AND LUCK, I CURRENTLY HAVE ALMOST FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS IN CASH, A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF WHICH I INTENDED TO USE IN MY CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT.”

(Sidebar: WHY the all CAPS. I will never understand it.)

Trump’s claim of having more than $500 million in cash runs directly counter to what his lawyers said earlier this week when they told the judge in the case that Trump did not have the money to pay the $454 million fine in the New York case.

Good times.

4. Livestream!: I spent 45 minutes answering questions on my YouTube channel this afternoon. Check it out!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“The Republican Party continues to lie and swindle its voter base. I in good conscience cannot affiliate myself with a party that stands for nothing and falls for everything.” — Former New York Rep. George Santos announces he is leaving the Republican party and will run for Congress as an independent in November

ONE GOOD CHART

Know how people always joke that weathermen (and women) never get the forecast right? That’s not true anymore, according to this chart from Our World in Data.

SONG OF THE DAY

Get ready to hear a lot about the new Waxahatchee record “Tigers Blood.” It’s my early pick for best album of 2024 — and it’s out today. This is “Crimes of the Heart” from it.