The 119th Congress will convene tomorrow, with Republicans looking to make the most of their unified control of the House, the Senate and — soon — the White House. Yet it’s not completely clear whether Republicans will stand behind Speaker Mike Johnson. Much as they did two years ago, some Republicans are debating whether they should keep their leader or try to find someone new to wield the gavel.
Johnson faces some continuing skepticism and opposition from a handful of members in his own conference, despite having received the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump this week — and despite the obvious lack of any viable alternative. “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Monday. “He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN.”
Johnson’s extremely narrow majority means he has almost no margin for defections. Republicans are expected to have a 219-215 majority when the House votes tomorrow afternoon to elect a speaker, in which case Johnson will need 218 votes, assuming all House members are present and voting for someone by name. And Rep. Thomas Massie, the obstreperous Kentucky Republican, has already made clear he won’t vote for Johnson, no matter the political repercussions. “If they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no Fs to give now,” Massie said, per The Wall Street Journal.
Massie told the Journal that Johnson may want to enact Trump’s agenda, but “he’s not that good at it.” The congressman pointed to Trump’s push at the end of last year to suspend the debt limit as part of a bill to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Johnson “lacked either the situational awareness or the bravery to tell Trump that it wasn’t doable,” Massie said. Instead, the legislation that included Trump’s desired debt limit fix failed, with 38 Republicans voting against it. Lawmakers later passed a compromise bill without addressing the debt ceiling.
No time for ‘palace drama’: Johnson has been working to make sure other hard-line Republican wild cards don’t join with Massie. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday morning, he emphasized the opportunity the party now has, with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“We will get this done,” Johnson told the “Fox & Friends” morning show. “We live in very serious times. We cannot afford any palace drama here. We have got to get the Congress started, which begins tomorrow, and we have to get immediately to work. We have to certify the election of President Donald J. Trump on January 6, on Monday, and we have many important things pressing on us right so, so there’s no time to waste. We have to stay unified.”
Republicans are likely to feel pressure to fall in line in time to certify Trump’s win, but achieving that unity might take more than one ballot.
Johnson acknowledged that he may only be able to lose one or two votes but expressed confidence that he’ll be able to get the needed support — and he indicated Thursday that he’s hopeful he’ll do it on the first ballot.
Before the votes are cast, Johnson continues to have meetings with holdouts. He has reportedly sought to avoid cutting backroom deals to win over opponents — the type of agreements that weakened former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who needed four days and 15 votes to secure the gavel. But Johnson is reportedly willing to make some concessions, and he told Fox that his conversations thus far have focused on “process reforms.” The Washington Post reports those reforms involve “efforts to ensure House Republicans can quickly pass conservative legislation while also cutting spending.”
Among the changes for the new Congress, the new 36-page rules package set to be voted on this week says that a motion to oust the speaker will now require the support of nine members of the majority party in order to get a vote. Two years ago, McCarthy had agreed to allow any individual member to bring up such a vote. (Democrats are upset about the change, arguing that it shields the speaker from being accountable to the entire chamber. “Instead of electing a Speaker of the House, they have decided to elect a Speaker of the Republican Conference—held hostage by their most extreme members,” Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said in a statement.)
The bottom line: The House can’t do anything without electing a speaker, so tune in for the vote tomorrow afternoon.
