WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on the job, on track to keep the gavel after a morning endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump ahead of a full House vote in the new year.
While Johnson has no serious challenger, he faces dissent within his ranks, particularly from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus withholding their votes as leverage to extract promises ahead.
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Trump told House Republicans, during the president-elect's first trip back to Washington since the party swept the 2024 election, that he's with the speaker all the way, according to a person familiar with the remarks but unauthorized to discuss the private meeting near the Capitol.
Johnson heaped praise on Trump, calling him the “comeback king.”
It’s been a remarkable political journey for Johnson, the accidental speaker who rose as a last, best choice to replace ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy more than a year ago and quickly set a course by positioning himself alongside Trump and leading Republicans during this year's elections.
Johnson said Trump tipped him off early Wednesday that he would be tapping another House Republican for his administration — Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, as attorney general — reducing Johnson's slim numbers in the new year. Gaetz submitted his resignation from Congress, effective immediately, launching an eight-week clock to fill his seat, Johnson said, possibly in time for the start of the new Congress on Jan. 3, 2025.
Gaetz is the third House GOP lawmaker tapped for the Trump administration, and Johnson said Gaetz wanted to help prevent the narrow numbers. The quick departure also ends a long-running House ethics probe into the Florida congressman.
As Johnson tells it, Trump is the “coach” and he is the “quarterback” as they prepare for a unified Republican government in the new year.
Johnson has embraced Trump's priorities on mass deportations, tax cuts, cutting the federal workforce and a more muscular U.S. image abroad. Together they have been working on what the speaker calls an ambitious 100-days agenda hoping to avoid what he called the mistakes of Trump's first term when Congress was unprepared and wasted “precious time.”
Wednesday's internal GOP vote was by voice rather than roll call or ballots, with no objections to Johnson, according to the same person in the room. The rest of the top GOP leaders were also elected.
But the outcome belies a more difficult road ahead for the speaker.
While Johnson expects to lead the House in unified government, with Trump in the White House and Republicans having seized the Senate majority, the House is expected to remain narrowly split. Republicans have won enough seats to control the chamber after victories Wednesday in Arizona and California gave the GOP 218 victories.
The problems that come with a slim House majority and plagued Johnson's first year as speaker when his own ranks routinely revolted over his plans are likely to spill into the new year, with a potential fresh round of chaotic governing.
Johnson needs just a simple majority in Wednesday's closed-door voting to win the GOP nomination to become speaker. But he will need majority support of the full House, 218 votes, to actually take hold of the gavel on Jan. 3, when the new Congress convenes and conducts the election for its speaker. It took McCarthy some 15 rounds of voting in a weeklong election to win the gavel in 2023.
Trump has made Johnson's problems more complicated by tapping House Republicans for his administration, reducing the numbers further. Just before voting, Trump announced Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general, sending shockwaves through the room over the far-right pick.
“Everybody was saying, Oh my God,” said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho.
Still, with Trump in the White House, the speaker may enjoy a period of goodwill from his own ranks as Republicans are eager to disrupt the norms of governing and institutionalize Trump's second-term agenda.
“His challenge is what it’s always been,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the Freedom Caucus, said of Johnson.
But he said, “With Trump in charge, it’ll be easier for him to deliver.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who launched a failed effort last year to oust Johnson from the speaker's office said: “You know who he’s going to have to answer to? Donald Trump.”
And Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, who wore his “Make America Great Again” tie with matching Trump gold sneakers, told reporters the party must put aside the chaos of the last few years and unify behind the president-elect.
“If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our head,” Nehls said.
Conservatives have been discussing whether to field their own candidate as a signal to Johnson as they push their own priorities, using the same tactic they did with McCarthy to force the speaker into concessions, particularly on steeper budget cuts.
Instead, they pulled Johnson aside for a lengthy private conversation, as other lawmakers watched and waited. The afternoon dragged on.
“It's nonsense, is what it is,” Simpson said. “Sometimes you can't do everything our exotic members want to do.”
Johnson said afterward a deal was struck between the Freedom Caucus and the more mainstream conservative Main Street Caucus on new GOP conference rules.
One change would make it harder to remove the speaker from office, requiring at least nine lawmakers to join in filing a so-called “motion to vacate” instead of just one. In return other proposals were dropped.
Democrats, who lent Johnson a hand at governing multiple times in Congress — supplying the votes needed to keep the federal government funded and turning back the effort by Greene to bounce him from office — are unlikely to help him in the new year as they try to put a check on Trump's agenda.
“House Democrats are ready to work with the new administration and will extend a hand of bipartisanship whenever possible,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the chairman of the Democratic Caucus.
But he said Democrats "will be ready to push against efforts” to throw millions of Americans off health care and other GOP priorities.
It’s wasn't just the speaker election Wednesday, but Republicans also reelected the rest of their top House GOP leadership team for the new year.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also of Louisiana, and GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, sailed to their reelections in leadership, as did Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who will lead the campaign arm the National Republican Congressional Committee for another term.
The House GOP conference chair went to Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan. It was the most competitive race for the job that opened up after Trump’s decision to tap Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York as his ambassador to the United Nations.
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