Barely 24 hours after muddying her timeline, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) did it anyway — and lost big. Speaker Mike Johnson survived Greene’s first proposal to oust him, which was tabled on a lightning-quick 359-43 vote, with seven Democrats voting present.

Only 10 conservatives voted alongside Greene to keep her speaker-firing push alive. It was an unquestionable victory for Johnson, though he got a big boost from the vast majority of Democrats who voted to keep him in place.

But the Louisiana Republican’s time as speaker may have a serious time limit. Johnson reiterated this week that he intends to run again for the House’s top spot if Republicans keep the majority — and winning that race will be much tougher than his surprise victory last October.

Johnson’s clearest remarks to date on his future plans drew a notable degree of skepticism from conservatives — even those who supported him on Wednesday’s ouster vote.

A broad pulse check of Johnson’s right flank turned up two main findings: Quite a few aren’t committed to supporting him come January; and, in a larger potential headache, some of them anticipate he’ll have a challenger.

“You’re going to see … multiple folks throw their names in the hat,” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.). He declined to talk about whether he would personally back Johnson.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said that whether he votes for Johnson in January “depends on who is running” but that he “absolutely” expects a challenger.

“This is beyond personalities,” he added. “This is, what are you going to do?”

Frustration on Johnson’s right has been building for months, mainly over a series of government funding fights, a recent battle over government surveillance powers and his decision to pass billions of dollars in new Ukraine aid. Johnson met with members of the conservative Freedom Caucus on Monday night, when members lined up to air their frustrations with his strategy.

Many said they don’t think Johnson has fought hard enough for conservative priorities, Republicans in the group recounted to us.

“He hasn’t made a strong case,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said about whether he could back Johnson again in January, stressing that he is focused on November for now.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — who mounted a symbolic challenge to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in late 2022 — told us he isn’t running again for the top spot, but that “there are people positioning themselves to run for speaker.”

Obviously, Johnson’s main antagonists will continue to oppose him: Greene, alongside Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.). And the speaker’s number of prospective January foes grew during Wednesday’s surprise ouster test vote, with eight hardliners joining that trio: Biggs, Roy and Reps. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.).

Now, some of those conservatives — Mooney and Crane in particular — had already indicated they weren’t in favor of bouncing the speaker at this point. They may portray their votes as nothing more than procedural moves in favor of further debate on Johnson. Burlison, for example, told us after the vote that he is open to supporting Johnson in January but couldn’t stomach voting with Democrats to table on Wednesday.

Either way, it’s not a great sign for the next leadership election.

Greene and her allies met twice with Johnson this week and have outlined four areas they want to see action on — leaving the door open, however vaguely, to repeated ouster attempts before the election. Those talks haven’t seemed to shake their belief that Johnson can’t win come January.

“I think that’s still the case. It’s pretty obvious,” Massie said.

The size of Johnson’s problem come January depends on a few things, namely a favorite variable of House GOP leaders: the size of their majority. Unlike McCarthy, Johnson is keeping his public estimates low, predicting that they will grow the majority but it will still be relatively narrow — in the neighborhood of a 10-seat margin.

That would give him more room to maneuver than his predecessor, who had to make steep concessions to hardliners in order to win the gavel. But it’s not enough space for him to feel comfortable.

Of course, whether he can keep the gavel also depends on who could successfully challenge him, and House Republicans made it clear this past October that such a person isn’t easy to find.

The conference would first hold internal leadership votes sometime after the November election, where Johnson would only need a simple majority of the GOP to become the speaker nominee — and get a much better sense of the size of his opposition.

Assuming, of course, that the GOP holds onto the House. If Republicans don’t win the majority, importantly, they expect Johnson — like most speakers when the chamber flips — would be swept out of leadership. Or as one GOP member, who backs the speaker, acknowledged on condition of anonymity: “If we’re in the minority, where is he going to go? Out.”

Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump urged House Republicans to unite and not to go along with an effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to oust Speaker Mike Johnson — after the chamber already voted to table the attempt.

“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his social networking platform. “But if we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything! Mike Johnson is a good man who is trying very hard.”

“I also wish certain things were done over the last period of two months, but we will get them done, together,” Trump continued. The former president added his party would “WIN BIG – AND IT WILL BE SOON!”

Greene’s motion to toss Johnson failed on the House floor, as a bipartisan majority of the chamber voted to table it.

Speaker Mike Johnson beat Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to end his speakership.

The House voted overwhelmingly to table the so-called motion to vacate, with 11 Republicans voting to move forward on the attempt, including Greene. But support from a large swath of Democrats helped Johnson defeat it.

It’s still unclear if Greene or other Johnson critics will force another ouster vote before the end of the year. But Wednesday’s vote marks a victory for Johnson, letting him avoid the same fate as his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, who was ejected from the speakership in October.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has officially started the clock on her doomed effort to hold a referendum on Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership.

The Georgia firebrand brought up the so-called motion to vacate as privileged, meaning GOP leadership is required to bring it up for a floor vote within two legislative days. It’s the second attempt to depose a speaker within seven months.

House leaders are expected to immediately move forward on a vote to block her effort, according to a person familiar with leadership’s plans.

Greene and her ally in the ouster effort, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), opted to move on their resolution after Johnson didn’t move quickly on a slew of their demands, some of which they wanted attached to a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Greene had pushed for Johnson to agree to four key demands, including not passing further Ukraine aid and defunding the special counsel probes into Donald Trump in upcoming appropriations bills.

The speaker had largely shrugged off the two hardliners and the House is expected to pass a one-week FAA extension in the afternoon vote. Johnson hasn’t indicated that any of their asks would be included in a broader reauthorization bill Congress will have to consider later this month.

Many members booed and heckled Greene as she read her resolution on the House floor. She fired back that her colleagues were part of the “uni-party,” a term conservatives use to deride Republicans who work with Democrats.

The upcoming vote to block her effort is referred to as a motion to table, which Democrats are expected to support — helping most Republicans block the attempt to depose Johnson. So far, Greene and Massie have two other Republicans in their corner: Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has backed ousting Johnson, and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who has said he will vote with them against tabling the resolution.

Several other Republicans — including Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — have declined to say whether they would support Greene. Republicans have warned that others could join her; with Democratic support, it gives them an outlet to vent frustrations without actually threatening his speakership.

And a handful of others have stated that they would save Johnson for now, despite despising how Johnson has handled a series of divisive votes for the party. Instead, that group said, they will wait until after the election in November to show their disapprobation.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are leaning on President Joe Biden to explain any delay in sending weapons to Israel after the two collaborated on a bipartisan foreign aid bill last month.

In a rare joint letter from the two Republican leaders, Johnson and McConnell said “security assistance to Israel is an urgent priority that must not be delayed.”

“These recent press reports and pauses in critical weapons shipments call into question your pledge that your commitment to Israel’s security remain ironclad,” the two GOP leaders wrote.

They asked Biden to respond by the end of the week to questions about the timing of a review of weapons shipments, whether other shipments will be paused and “most importantly when the review is anticipated to end to all this vital assistance to move forward.”

Progressives in Congress hailed the administration’s pause on a shipment of bombs to Israel, with some crediting the pressure Democrats placed on President Joe Biden to get Israel to change the way it is waging war in Gaza.

But lead Republicans were quick to condemn Biden, accusing him of appeasing his party’s fringe and undermining the will of Congress after it passed a multibillion-dollar aid package for Israel last month.

The large shipment of weapons was put on hold over concern about possible Israeli military action in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering. Biden is pushing for a cease-fire deal to avert a major assault.

Some Democrats have been intensifying their calls for Biden to withhold or set conditions on weapons for Israel in an effort to secure more humanitarian aid and avert more civilian casualties. Last month, 56 House Democrats — including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — urged the move in a letter to Biden.

Wednesday saw a major change in tone among those progressives.

“I think this is really speaking to the large swath of the Democratic Caucus that needs to see a change,” said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), who was among 37 House Democrats who voted against last month’s Israel aid bill.

“It has been very satisfying to see the message, I believe, is getting through, it’s getting delivered,” even if the administration isn’t going as far as some progressives would like, Balint said in an interview.

“We’re trying to turn the Titanic,” she said. “Israel is a strong ally of ours, I think most Americans support Israel as a sovereign, secure Jewish state, and they’re also holding this deep despair about the way [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has conducted the offensive in Gaza.”

Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), another Democrat who voted against Israel aid, said in an interview that the pause was “absolutely the right decision” and not too little too late.

“You can’t be airdropping in food and hand-delivering missiles, that’s wrong,” Jackson said.

Democrats who are also strong Israel backers said they disagree with the pause and were seeking more information from the administration.

“I don’t think there should be a pause. So if that’s the case, then that’s concerning,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in an interview. “But I’m also not that worried because this is a country in which we’re regularly speaking with every single day, and we’re literally embedded with one another in terms of our [military] cooperation.”

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) all voiced frustration with the move and said the administration must explain itself.

McConnell, in a floor speech Wednesday, jeered the administration’s professed ironclad commitment as bending “under the heat of domestic political pressure from his party’s anti-Israel base and the campus Communists who decided to wrap themselves in the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Senate Intelligence Vice Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in an interview that Biden just made a cease-fire harder to get.

“I’m sure Hamas is happy,” Rubio said. “When we do that, [Israel’s] enemies are encouraged. I think it probably makes a realistic ceasefire less likely. If you’re Hamas and you think they’re not going to have weaponry, you probably think you have more leverage and less urgency.”

Johnson and other House Republicans drew a parallel with former President Donald Trump’s freeze on military aid to Ukraine while asking Ukrainians to dig up dirt on his enemies. The move led to his first impeachment.

Johnson said Republicans will “get down to the bottom of” the holdup, which he compared to accusations Trump politicized military aid. He accused Biden of trying to “placate the pro-Hamas element of his party.”

“Administration officials have assured Congress, and have assured me personally very recently … that there would be no delay in assistance to Israel,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday.

“This is an underhanded attempt to withhold aid without facing accountability. It’s undermining what Congress intended and has acted to take care of by authorizing the aid to Israel,” Johnson said. “And so if the president truly wanted to defeat Hamas like he’s said in the past, he wouldn’t be standing in the way preventing it from happening.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also faced questions Wednesday from Republicans on Capitol Hill. GOP senators argued that in withholding the weapons, the Biden administration was sending the wrong signal in the Middle East and not giving Israel the weapons it needs to defeat Hamas.

“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) fumed to Austin. “Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.”

Austin said the U.S. has paused the shipment amid concerns that a looming invasion of Rafah could cause heavy civilian casualties. He added that, despite criticisms that the administration is defying the will of Congress, the shipment is unrelated to $95 billion in aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan that passed last month.

The Pentagon chief added that no final decision has been made on the weapons transfer, though Republicans weren’t satisfied with the explanation that the holdup doesn’t constitute a change in U.S. policy toward Israel.

“I would suggest to you that pausing or delaying the delivery of weapons to Israel is a decision, and it’s a decision that most members of Congress would take issue with,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Senate Appropriations Republican.

Speaker Mike Johnson promoted legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections in a press conference Wednesday, flanked by conservatives who have repeatedly questioned the results of the last presidential contest.

Johnson spoke alongside conservatives like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), attorney Cleta Mitchell, Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin and former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, many of whom pursued challenges to President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” Johnson said at the press conference. “But it’s not been something that is easily provable. We don’t have that number.”

The Louisiana Republican was flanked by figures like Mitchell, who helped assemble Trump’s crew of post-election lawyers and participated in a conference call where the former president pressured Georgia officials over the state’s election results. Martin was present at a march in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, but did not speak at a rally that day that preceded the Capitol attack.

“What we’re talking about today is the 2024 election — nobody can go back and relitigate what happened in 2020,” Johnson said, despite the histories of the people standing next to him.

It’s not the first signal that Johnson has been aligning himself more closely with Trump and his allies. The speaker and the former president have spoken multiple times in recent days as Johnson seeks to fend off threats from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to strip him of the House gavel, and Trump has told Greene to stand down from that effort.

The speaker vowed Tuesday that the House would pass the voter ID bill and send it over to the Senate for consideration, where it stands little chance of advancing. Despite that, Johnson pushed back on the idea the legislation was merely a messaging exercise, saying “we’ll let Chuck Schumer decide” whether to move on the bill.

Lee acknowledged that undocumented immigrants are currently barred from voting under federal law, but added: “There is no valid basis upon which you could oppose this. It would be insane.”

Senators continue to look for a way forward on amendments to FAA reauthorization legislation ahead of a Friday deadline.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cited “good progress” on the floor Tuesday but also noted it will take “a lot of cooperation to get this complicated bill done” quickly.

Both parties will break for their weekly lunches around midday, and the aviation legislation is sure to be a key topic of conversation.

Across the Capitol, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has seemingly relented — for now — from her threat to force an ouster vote on Speaker Mike Johnson. The speaker, for his part, has said he’s not negotiating with the conservative firebrand.

The chamber is expected to vote around 4:30 p.m. Among the measures slated for consideration is a bill requiring non-citizens be excluded from the Census — a policy the Trump administration tried to implement but abandoned after the Supreme Court struck the effort down.

At 1 p.m., the House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on Washington’s response to antisemitism. Mayor Muriel Bowser is expected to testify.