Speaker Johnson tries to court Taylor Greene, invites her to help tackle Obamacare subsidies after shutdown revolt

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson has made overtures to firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after she publicly revolted against the GOP’s strategy in the government shutdown fight and called for the enhanced Obamacare subsidies to be extended.

Johnson (R-La.) claims he reached out to Greene (R-Ga.) after she broke ranks and offered to let her sit in on the committee that deals with health care policy.

“I had a thoughtful conversation with my friend Marjorie Taylor Greene on the phone the other night … to inform her that there are many Republicans in Congress that have been working around the clock on this,” the speaker recalled on “Fox News Sunday.”

“They’re on the committees of jurisdiction that deal with this. Marjorie doesn’t serve on those committees, so I offered to have her come into the room and be a part of that discussion, if indeed she wants to.”

Last week, Greene blasted Johnson for not bringing the House back in session amid the partial government shutdown and chided GOP leadership for not nuking the Senate filibuster to reopen the government.

For the past two weeks, Democrats have been blocking a clean GOP spending patch to reopen the government while demanding Republicans cave to their healthcare demands.

Democrats have demanded Republicans reverse their reforms to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (now the Working Families Tax Cut Act) and permanently extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire by the end of the year.

While Greene backed the Medicaid changes, the congresswoman declared last week that she wants to extend those enhanced subsidies, which were beefed up under the Biden administration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” she said.

The House GOP leader previously brushed off Greene’s criticisms, telling reporters that she doesn’t sit on the relevant committees and probably wasn’t read in on Republicans’ plans for healthcare.

Johnson and other GOP leaders have been adamant that Democrats allow them to reopen the government first, and then Congress may look into the Obamacare issue afterwards.

The speaker also stressed that Republicans want to see reforms to the enhanced subsidies before they agree to extend them.

“There has been a lot of work done on this,” Johnson added. “We have hundreds of ideas, literally, on the table to fix health care, to make it more affordable for the American people, to make access more available, and to increase the quality of care.”

Greene has long been a critic of Johnson. In May of last year, she mounted an unsuccessful bid to oust him after he brought up a vote on military aid to war-torn Ukraine.

Last week, she sat down for a lengthy podcast interview with comedian Tim Dillon, where she repeatedly ripped into Johnson.