House Speaker Mike Johnson scored a major triumph in a dramatic single-ballot victory to retain the speaker’s gavel, suturing together a united front from an often fractured House GOP conference.
But House Republicans will need to stay united to move President-elect Donald Trump’s lofty agenda with their paper-thin majority.
That unity will hold through Monday’s joint session of Congress to certify Mr. Trump’s victory. Fractures will likely emerge, however, when Republicans start hammering out the details of Mr. Trump’s legislative agenda, including border security, energy policy, an extension and expansion of tax cuts first enacted during his first administration and deep cuts to the government bureaucracy.
“We’ve got a big agenda,” Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said after winning the gavel Friday, adding that Republicans were already mapping out the legislative strategy. “So we’re excited.”
Mr. Johnson said he was “proud” not to have cut any deals to win the speakership. But he did have to offer some assurances to flip two Republicans, Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, who initially voted against him.
Only Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, opposed Mr. Johnson in the end.
The sudden unification showed “that everybody understands that we have been given a mandate” and they will “be able to put the big picture over their own personal circumstance,” Rep. Van Orden, Wisconsin Republican, told The Washington Times.
“Is everybody going to get everything they want? No,” he said. “But if you get everything you want all of the time, you are ruling, you are not governing.”
Mr. Johnson still faces roadblocks, particularly from hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus who refused to commit to supporting him ahead of the speaker election.
Mr. Norman told The Times that the speaker’s message to the final two holdouts was: “You’re going to have to trust me to push the Trump agenda.”
He said it was worth the extra time huddling with Mr. Johnson behind closed doors as the speaker vote was held open to underscore the severity of the Freedom Caucus’ concerns, which boil down to a commitment to actually cut spending and begin reducing the deficit.
“And he was very blunt, too,” Mr. Norman said. “He said, ‘If I don’t do what I’m telling you I’m going to do in this small room, put me out, do the motion to vacate.’ And I respect that.”
The motion to vacate is the procedure used to oust a speaker that wrought chaos on the House after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was booted in 2023. After the speaker vote on Friday, Republicans voted to update House rules and raise the threshold for triggering the motion to vacate from one member of either party to nine in the majority — one more than the eight Republicans who voted to depose Mr. McCarthy.
A group of 11 Freedom Caucus members, including Mr. Norman, have already put Mr. Johnson on notice. They released a letter pressing him to make good on his promises to move the Trump agenda, warning, “There is always room to negotiate on so-called ‘leadership’ positions under the rules.”
Rep. Andy Ogles, one of the signatories, said the letter is about “accountability.”
“There’s a tall menu that has been delivered to us by the American people,” Mr. Ogles said. “It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be messy, but we have a responsibility to get it done.”
Asked if Mr. Johnson’s job is in peril if he doesn’t deliver, Mr. Ogles said, “Nobody wants to have a sword over their head, but we have the motion to vacate for a reason. He’s been given a job. He’s got to go do that job.”
For example, he said, Mr. Johnson has committed to working on facilitating more conversation with rank-and-file members on legislation “before it gets to the floor and kind of derails.”
Critics of Mr. Johnson decried the deals he cut with Democrats to advance must-pass government funding legislation and to provide billions in additional aid to Ukraine.
Armed with a smaller majority than the previous Congress, Mr. Johnson may again have to deal with Democrats, particularly on government funding and other bills that are subject to the filibuster in the Senate.
Because Republicans don’t have a filibuster-proof Senate majority, they are planning to advance the most critical pieces of their legislative agenda through the budget reconciliation process. The procedure is not subject to the filibuster but comes with strict rules that any legislative changes made using it must have a significant budgetary impact.
Republicans huddled on Saturday to begin detailing tax and spending reforms they can pass through the reconciliation process.
Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican who helped lead the retreat, said the broad goals are to lock in and expand upon the tax cuts from 2017, secure the border, enact good energy policies and rein in spending.
Still, it will require tradeoffs and compromise to come up with legislation that can pass through a diverse GOP conference with a razor-thin majority, he said.
“Failure is not an option,” Mr. Arrington told The Times.
Mr. Johnson said Sunday on Fox News that Mr. Trump preferred “one big, beautiful bill” rather than splitting his legislative wishlist into two reconciliation bills.
“No one is going to love every element of a large package like that. But there will be enough elements in there to pull everyone along,” he said. “I think keeping it together is how we’ll get it done.”
That could tee up a clash with the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said he wants to pass a border-focused bill first in the early weeks of the new Congress and take more time to negotiate the more complex agenda items like tax and spending cuts.
Indeed, Mr. Johnson predicted that Republicans could pass the colossal package out of the House as soon as April 3, so it could clear the Senate and land on Mr. Trump’s desk by the end of April, or “in a worst case scenario, Memorial Day.”
Meeting the Memorial Day deadline is important because Mr. Johnson affirmed that Republicans plan to use the reconciliation bill to raise the debt ceiling by June. That’s when experts estimate the Treasury Department will exhaust extraordinary measures needed to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its obligations now that a debt ceiling suspension has been lifted.
In December, 38 House Republicans voted against a Trump-inspired plan to extend the debt limit for two years in a bill to temporarily extend government funding. They objected because it did not contain any spending cuts.
Afterward, House Republicans and key Trump advisers agreed to a tentative plan to use the reconciliation process to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion while cutting spending by $2.5 trillion.
Identifying those cuts will likely be the trickiest part of putting together the reconciliation package.
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, still has reservations about Mr. Johnson’s ability to deliver. He is concerned the speaker and other Republicans will push “to do pie in the sky nonsense and do a debt ceiling increase without getting spending cuts.”
“What I won’t do is be browbeat into supporting any kind of a vote on the floor that does not measure up,” Mr. Roy said.
Mr. Norman also said he would object to a compromise where “there’s no real cuts, that it’s just nibbling around the edges.”
On the flip side are more moderate Republicans, many of whom won tough reelection races to allow the GOP to hold onto their slim majority. They will need to do the same again in 2026.
One of those Republicans, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, said he is not opposed to cutting spending but is worried the deep level of cuts conservatives are seeking is not politically achievable without bipartisan buy-in.
“If we try to balance the budget without Democrats, we’ll be in the minority next time,” he told The Times. “It’s going to be too much pain. It’s got to be a joint effort.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.