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 as House Republicans huddled at a hotel just off Capitol Hill.
Because Republicans likely 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 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.) also offered his thoughts on the matter, 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.”
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.
Restive right-wingers in the party had floated the idea of running a protest candidate against Johnson in Wednesday’s party leadership elections but appeared to back off later.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a prominent member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus that has often caused GOP leadership problems, took aim at proposed rule changes for how House Republicans operate that would boost the speaker’s hand.
“Instead of wasting time with counterproductive efforts demanding we hand over our voting cards to ‘the party,’ we should be focused right now on developing legislation around which we can unite to deliver on President Trump’s agenda,” Roy posted on social media Wednesday.
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“What has failed us every time is top down demands that have resulted in major pieces of legislation being passed with vastly more democrats than Republicans and at times — without even a majority of Republican support,” he added.
Other Republicans’ patience for hardline 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.