Mike Johnson Basks In Trump Embrace, House GOP Remaining In Power
President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) should put an end to any debate over his hold on the Republican conference, several party members said Wednesday.
Johnson was poised to win another term as speaker in the upcoming 119th Congress that begins in January, receiving the nomination of his fellow party members in an uncontested voice vote as House Republicans huddled at a hotel just off Capitol Hill.
Because Republicans have won the majority of the House’s 435 seats, their nominee will become the speaker in January. But unlike the current Congress, where former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had to go to 15 votes to woo reluctant Republicans to vote for him before being unceremoniously booted from the job 10 months later, Johnson’s prospects look much brighter.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) told HuffPost that Trump made it clear in his appearance before the conference Wednesday morning he considered Johnson “my guy.”
“That settles it as far as I’m concerned,” Gimenez said. “I think it’s settled.”
“McCarthy and Johnson [last year] didn’t have the benefit of having the president. We were the opposition party. Now we’re not the opposition party. So when the president-elect of the United States says, ‘that’s my guy,’ then we all better get in line,” he added.
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) echoed Gimenez, saying, “I don’t think anybody would have a chance against the speaker, but with the president there behind him, I don’t think that’s even an issue.”
After the vote, Johnson appeared with fellow members of the House GOP leadership team and stressed party unity.
“The theme that you’ll hear over and over from all of our members across the conference is that we are unified and energized and ready to go,” Johnson said.
The situation marks quite a turnaround for Johnson, who had sometimes been called an “accidental speaker” after he emerged from three weeks of contentious party infighting in October 2023 to take the gavel. But keeping the House and putting in the miles of travel to fundraise for candidates across the country give Johnson a firmer mandate than last year.
Johnson on Tuesday said his staff calculated he appeared at 360 campaign events in more than 250 cities across 40 states.
“I logged enough miles to circumnavigate the globe 5 1/2 times, but it was worth it. It was worth it,” Johnson said at a victory lap press conference.
Had Republicans lost the majority, which seemed a clear possibility heading into the fall with a margin of error of only a handful of seats, Johnson would likely have been ditched, and another leadership contest would be taking place now that lawmakers are back in Washington.
But Johnson’s win, his colleagues seeing the work he put in, and Trump’s embrace still may not necessarily mean the end of the ongoing intraparty sniping that marked the last two years.
Prior to his remarks, Johnson brought on leaders from two competing House GOP intraparty groups, the Republican Main Street Caucus, a group of moderates, and the House Freedom Caucus, to tout a detente they reached on party rules.
The groups agreed to raise the minimum number of members who can call a vote to oust the speaker from 1 to 9 in the next Congress, a move that will strengthen Johnson after McCarthy’s ouster was initiated by now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
Restive right-wingers in the party had also floated the idea of running a protest candidate against Johnson in Wednesday’s party leadership elections but backed off later.
And Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told reporters Johnson’s voice vote, instead of balloting that would reveal exactly how many supporters he has, was seen as a sign of soft support and that more rules negotiations could take place in coming weeks, according to a Capitol Hill press corps pool report.
Other Republicans’ patience for hard-line holdouts may be waning, though. Even before the election, there was grumbling, which is what led to the proposed rule changes.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) dismissed any concerns about Johnson’s staying power.
“Nobody’s running against him,” he said.
