The success of President-Elect Donald Trumps legislative agenda will depend on whether Republicans can close ranks in Congress. They nearly failed on their very first vote.
Mike Johnson won reelection as House speaker by the narrowest of margins this afternoon, and only after two Republican holdouts changed their votes at the last minute. Johnson won on the first ballot with exactly the 218 votes he needed to secure the required majority. The effort he expended to keep the speakers gavel portends a tough slog for Trump, who endorsed Johnsons bid.
Johnson was well short of a majority after an initial tally in the House, which elects a speaker in a long, televised roll call during which every members name is called. Three RepublicansRepresentatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Keith Self of Texasvoted for other candidates, and another six refused to vote at all in a protest of Johnsons leadership. The six who initially sat out the roll call cast their votes for Johnson when their names were called a second time. But it took nearly an hour for Johnson to flip Norman and Self. After huddling with Johnson on and off the House floor, the three men walked together to the front of the House chamber, where Norman and Self changed their votes to put Johnson over the top.
The tense vote marked the second Congress in a row in which the formal, usually ceremonial opening of the House became highly dramatic. Two years ago, conservative holdouts forced Kevin McCarthy to endure 15 rounds of voting and days of horse-trading before allowing him to become speaker. With help from Democrats, the same group ousted him nine months later, leading to Johnsons election as his replacement.
McCarthys chief nemesis was then-Representative Matt Gaetz, who resigned his seat during his brief bid to become Trumps attorney general (and ahead of a bombshell report from the House Ethics Committee alleging that he had sex with a 17-year-old, among other claims). The Republican playing Gaetzs role this time was Massie, a seven-term Kentuckian with a libertarian streak who vowed to oppose Johnson even under threat of digital amputation. (You can start cutting off my fingers, Massie told Gaetz on Thursday night in his former colleagues new capacity as a host on One America News Network.)
Read: Not the life Matt Gaetz was planning on
Yet the members opposing Johnson were not as numerous or dug-in as McCarthys adversaries. And although Trump backed McCarthy two years ago, he was more politically invested in Johnsons success today. A drawn-out fight for the speakership could have threatened his legislative agenda and even delayed the certification of his election. (The House cannot function without a speaker, so it would not have been able to formally open and count the Electoral College ballots as required by the Constitution on January 6.)
Even with todays relatively swift resolution, Johnsons struggle to remain speaker is an ominous sign for the GOPs ability to enact Trumps priorities in the first few months of his term. The majority that narrowly elected Johnson will temporarily become slimmer once the Senate confirms two Republican lawmakers to Trumps Cabinet, creating vacancies pending special elections to replace them. And GOP divisions have already emerged over whether the party should launch its governing trifecta with a push to bolster the southern border or combine that effort with legislation extending Trumps 2017 tax cuts.
Republicans have a bigger buffer in the Senate, where they control 53 seats. But in the House, the GOP edge is two seats smaller than it was at the beginning of the last Congress, and just one or two members will have the power to defeat party-line votes without support from Democrats. Johnsons main critics, including Massie, Norman, and Self, support Trumps agenda in the abstract, but they are not loyalists of the president-elect. (Neither Massie nor Roy backed him in the GOP primary last year.) They are far more hawkish on spending than Trump, who showed little concern for deficits in his first term and has pushed Republicans to raise or even eliminate the debt ceiling before he takes officea move that could smooth the passage of costly tax cuts.
Minutes before the vote today, Johnson posted on X a list of commitments apparently aimed at mollifying a few of the GOP holdouts. He pledged to create a pair of working groups to audit federal spending and work with Trumps new Department of Government Efficiency to implement recommended government and spending reforms. Johnson did not specify any cuts or identify how much money hed propose trimming from the budget.
Elaina Plott Calabro: The accidental speaker
His pledges werent enough, and Johnson reportedly needed Trumps help to secure the final votes. Afterward, the speakers critics made clear that the divisions on display today hadnt been fully resolved. Leaders of the conservative House Freedom Caucus released a statement saying they had backed Johnson despite our sincere reservations only because they wanted to support Trumps agenda. One of those members, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, who initially withheld his vote for Johnson, warned the speaker that there are many members beyond the three who voted for someone else who have reservations.
Johnsons opponents complained that he has been too quick to strike deals with Democratsa perennial gripe that House conservatives have with Republican leaders. But their brief revolt today offered a reminder of how much leverage Democrats might retain in Trumps Washington. Over the past two years. Republicans who nominally controlled the House couldnt pass any significant legislation without help from Democrats. Their majority is even smaller now.
When Johnson addressed the House after accepting the speakers gavel this afternoon, he noted that the Democratic minority leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, had offered to work with Republicans on one of Trumps top prioritiessecuring the border. Im counting on it, Johnson said. If todays struggle was any indication, the reelected Republican speaker, along with the reelected Republican president, might be relying on Democrats more than theyd like.