Trump endorses Mike Johnson to continue as house speaker

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump endorsed Mike Johnson for another term as House speaker on Monday, roughly two weeks after Trump helped put Johnson’s chances in jeopardy by sinking a bipartisan spending bill that the speaker had negotiated to avert a government shutdown.

The announcement from Trump on his website, Truth Social, ended days of private discussions by the president-elect and his allies about whether to try to save Johnson or find another option, as some conservatives have been agitating for.

The House is set to choose a speaker on Friday, just three days before Trump’s Electoral College victory is certified by a joint session of Congress, and Johnson needs to cobble together a majority to keep the job. Given Republicans’ scant margin of control, his reelection is no sure thing. Failure to have a speaker in place by then could delay the certification process and focus attention on the deep divisions within the narrow House Republican majority as Trump is seeking to pursue an ambitious agenda.

“The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man,” Trump wrote in a discursive post that praised himself and his campaign, attacked Democrats and mocked the Rev. Al Sharpton, with whom he has a long and contentious history.

Trump said Johnson would “do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!”

A person close to Trump, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the fact that House Republicans bucked the president-elect on the debt limit demand helped Trump realize that some members of the House posed challenges, but that Johnson was not one of them.

Trump and Johnson have been talking by phone regularly, and the speaker has told associates that the conversations have been warm and supportive.

Before making his endorsement on Monday, Trump had privately told people that Johnson had asked for his support, but that he was not sure he was going to back him. Trump and his advisers also told associates, though, that they did not see who else could get the 218 votes required to become speaker.

In private, Trump has complained that Johnson failed during the end-of-session negotiations this month to deliver on a key demand from the president-elect: that the spending legislation raise the debt ceiling to spare Trump from having to deal with the issue when he takes office.

Trump had made that demand as Johnson negotiated for a new bipartisan compromise after a late effort by the president-elect and his ally, Elon Musk, to sink the previous deal that Johnson struck with Democrats. It was not clear whether Trump had discussed increasing the debt limit as a priority of his before he went public with his demand, or whether Johnson had given Trump’s team full insight into what the spending bill would contain.

Trump has complained that Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, agreed in May 2023 to a spending deal with modest cuts that also lifted the debt ceiling in negotiation with President Joe Biden. He has also griped about Johnson not finding a way to spare Trump facing down a debt ceiling early in his next term.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.