Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) averted a government shutdown, but the days-long rollercoaster as the leaders cycled through multiple plans leaves serious questions about how the Speaker will manage the House GOP under President-elect Trump — and whether he can keep his gavel.
The intra-party clashes that were on full display this week will be even more consequential next year as Johnson aims to push through an ambitious legislative agenda in Trump’s first 100 days in office with an even slimmer GOP majority in the House.
Republican frustration with Johnson this week boiled over beyond the typically antagonistic hardline conservative wing as he went from unveiling a bipartisan 1,500 bill and then abandoning it due to GOP opposition; to pushing a slimmed-down plan B that included a debt ceiling increase requested by Trump, which failed on the House floor; to finally ushering through the slimmed-down version without a debt ceiling lift.
“There’s zero communication from leadership to the membership. And it’s frustrating. And it’s something that should change before January 3,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said as she entered a House GOP conference meeting on Friday. “We need a clear understanding of how we’re going to do things next session, because what’s happening now is completely unacceptable.”
Jan. 3 is the first day of the 119th Congress, where the first order of business for House members will be electing the Speaker.
Johnson cannot afford more than one Republican defection on the House floor in the Jan. 3 Speakership election, assuming all members are present and voting. Republicans are set to have 219 Republicans taking the oath of office on Jan. 3, and all 215 Democrats are expected to vote for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) – with Jeffries saying this month that Democrats will not save Johnson from a GOP revolt.
One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), is already publicly pledging to vote against the Speaker on Jan. 3.
“We’re legislating by braille here,” Massie said Friday. “I think this wasn’t handled well. And then I still have all the grievances from last at the beginning of this year; FISA, Ukraine, all of those things. I think there’s going to be a reckoning eventually.”
A number of other Republicans who spoke to The Hill this week also withheld their support for Johnson. And Johnson is losing backing from others who previously supported him.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told The Hill on Wednesday after the initial 1,500-page funding bill was released that he still supported Johnson. But on Friday after the House passed the stripped-down version, Harris said in a statement on X that he was “undecided on what leadership should look like in the 119th Congress,” citing concerns about unpaid new spending not offset by cuts.
Yet even some who were highly critical of Johnson’s handling of the funding deal this week, such as Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), said they are not ready to force a floor fight over the Speakership.
“We’ll see how it goes … I want a consensus pick,” McCormick said. “Of course, he’s made mistakes. And any quarterback in any Super Bowl, including the MVP, can make mistakes. But you know, nothing’s done until it’s done.”
The situation echoes the sequence of events that led to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) being ousted from the Speakership in October 2023 just days after he pushed through a short-term government funding bill with the help of Democrats.
But there are several differences in the dynamics. While former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) claimed that he moved to oust McCarthy over policy gripes, McCarthy maintained that Gaetz had a personal vendetta against him over an ethics investigation.
Delaying the election of a Speaker for multiple days, as was the case with McCarthy in 2023, would also clash with Congress’s statutory responsibility to count the electoral votes that certify Trump’s victory on Jan. 6.
Johnson has also enjoyed the support of Trump, which helped him get nominated as Speaker in an unanimous internal voice vote in November.
The Speaker on Friday night emphasized that he was in “constant communication” with Trump during the continuing resolution negotiation process — and that he had talked to Elon Musk, who had posted incessantly against Johnson’s original bipartisan deal, within an hour of the stopgap and disaster aid package passing. Musk, in turn, posted on X that Johnson “did a good job here, given the circumstances.”
But some members think Trump could be doing more to signal his support for Johnson.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said that “going multiple rounds, fighting with one another” over the Speakership, as members did with McCarthy over 15 ballots in 2023, would “delay the work that we have to do to deliver on the America first mandate.”
“I think President-elect Trump can play an enormously constructive role in helping speaker Johnson get there early,” Barr said.
Asked after the vote Friday if he is confident that he can keep the Speakership, and if he could win on the first ballot, Johnson said to each question: “Yes.”
Difficulties for Johnson will extend far beyond Jan. 3, though.
“There’s going to be a reckoning when Trump figures out that Mike Johnson has constraints on him that were imposed before President Trump won the election,” Massie said, adding that there will be tensions between what Trump wants Johnson to do and what GOP members want him to do.
Some of that tension emerged this week, when Trump made a last-minute demand to increase the debt limit as part of a deal to continue government funding. Trump wanted to get the issue out of the way before he takes office in January so Democrats could not use it as leverage, but many Republicans balked at raising the debt limit without significant spending cuts.
In an attempt to appease Trump, Republicans struck an agreement to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in net cuts to spending, done through a reconciliation package next year, two sources confirmed to The Hill.
That adds a significant layer of complexity to an already-ambitious legislative agenda that Republicans were hoping to push through Congress and onto Trump’s desk without Democratic support. Republicans were already eyeing that party-line reconciliation process to extend tax cuts first passed under Trump’s term and to address border issues.
And after some members of the House GOP are confirmed to join the Trump cabinet, Johnson will be able to afford zero defections on party-line measures until GOP replacements are chosen in special elections.
“It’s gonna be a fist fight on every vote,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said.
Given the steep challenges, Johnson was asked by a reporter Friday evening if he even wants to keep the job.
“Being Speaker of the House is a challenge in this modern era, but it’s a challenge that we accept,” Johnson responded. “I wouldn’t say it’s the most fun job in the world all the time, but it’s an important one. A hugely consequential moment for the country.”
Aris Folley and Mychael Schnell contributed.
