Colleagues of Speaker Mike Johnson observe that the famously strait-laced Republican does not drink or smoke, cuss, or fight. But he does gamble. That much was clear Friday.
Johnson told reporters ahead of the vote that he expected to win reelection “on the first round.” The confidence seemed premature, even like a bit of a bluff, especially as his right flank, members of his own party, threatened to sink him. He could only lose a single vote. Johnson refused to make side deals to secure votes. Nothing was certain.
And then Johnson won on the first ballot, exactly like he predicted, but not before a heavy dose of drama.
Nine Republicans initially abstained or voted against him. Potentially a sign of future trouble, it was the exact number required under current House rules to force a vote on “vacating the chair,” a parliamentary procedure to force a vote on ousting a sitting speaker. One by one, though, they changed their votes until only Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas held out.
Democrats, meanwhile, remained enthusiastically unified in their support of Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies and seemed to enjoy the chaos threatening to tank their Republican colleagues.
Self and Norman opposed Johnson at first, and for almost an hour, those two Republicans seemed like they were about to hamstring the leader of their own conference. When a second ballot seemed imminent, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace dialed the president-elect on her cellphone.
Mace and Johnson corralled the two holdouts into a hideaway office just off the House floor, where Trump was waiting to talk over speakerphone. The message from the president-elect, a source with direct knowledge of the call told RealClearPolitics, was that “we had the most historic election, and you guys are stepping all over it by being ridiculous.”
“I won all these swing states, but while Democrats are over there sticking together, you two guys are screwing it all up. The American people want relief and the Trump agenda,” Trump told the holdouts, according to a source granted anonymity to describe the call. “You two are screwing it all up.”
A rebellion against Johnson, the president-elect warned, was the same as a rebellion against him.
Norman described the conversation in less caustic terms, telling Fox News in an interview that Trump “just said, ‘Mike Johnson is the only one that’s got the support among the body to become speaker.’ And I get that. But, you know, the only way I had to let my voice be heard was what I did.”
After the president-elect intervened, they switched their votes to back Johnson. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie was the lone renegade who defied his own party. In the end, a single dissenting vote did not matter as Johnson was reelected on a party-line 218-215 vote.
It was the first episode of the second season of the Trump show, and Republicans were happy Friday to keep the drama to just one day.
The president-elect had endorsed Johnson in November and again last month when grumbling conservatives, unhappy with the spending deal the speaker cut with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown, threatened open revolt. A rebellion would not only lead to a messy floor fight like the one former Speaker Kevin McCarthy barely lived through when conservatives forced 15 different votes, but it would also delay certification of the election. There will be no delay now that the revolt has fizzled.
“Working together, we have the potential to be one of the most consequential Congresses in the history of this great nation,” Johnson said in his acceptance speech, stressing the need for unity and urging Republicans and Democrats alike “to put down our partisan swords and pick up bipartisan plowshares.”
Johnson began the day with alms to fiscal conservatives by announcing that he would create a working group to aggressively police government spending and review audits of federal agencies. This was easy enough as Johnson considers himself a conservative and is widely considered the most conservative speaker of the House that Republicans have had in decades.
With legislation on the horizon to codify Trump’s first term tax cuts and build a border wall, the statement from Johnson could signal that fiscal discipline will be the cost of getting the president-elect’s agenda into law. The statement did not, however, amount to anything close to a concession.
Conservatives had reportedly wanted Johnson to support making Texas Rep. Chip Roy the chairman of the influential House Rules Committee in exchange for their votes. The speaker made no such deal, a fact that allies believe strengthens his hand going into another Congress with tight margins.
The conservative Freedom Caucus begrudgingly got on board. “Today, we voted for Mike Johnson for Speaker of the House because of our steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors,” those members of Congress wrote before protesting the spending levels in the previous Congress. “We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the Speaker’s track record over the past 15 months.”
A senior Republican aide offered a succinct translation, telling RCP that “we did it for Trump, but there are issues with Johnson.” Those issues were not enough to sink Johnson, who didn’t blink Friday and who won the gavel with Trump’s help and an auspicious gamble.
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