Johnson reelected as speaker after putting down GOP revolt

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday won reelection to the top post in the House, salvaging his job in a dramatic last-minute turnabout by putting down a revolt from conservatives who initially voted to block his ascent.

Johnson barely mustered the majority he needed to win reelection on the first ballot, with help from President-elect Donald Trump, who interrupted a golf game to lobby holdouts by phone. That allowed the speaker to avoid the humiliation of a multiday slog of failed votes like the one his predecessor Kevin McCarthy suffered through before ultraconservatives relented and elected him two years ago.

Johnson won with just enough votes to clinch the gavel, 218-215.

But the chaotic scene that played out on the House floor — with three Republicans initially opposing Johnson and six more abstaining until it appeared he would lose before voting for him — reflected the same divisions within GOP ranks that had plagued McCarthy.

It was a grim portent for Johnson at the start of the new all-Republican Congress, and for Trump as he embarks upon his second term with an ambitious and crowded agenda that will require his party to stay almost entirely unified.

Johnson and Trump had urged Republican lawmakers to quickly elect him speaker so the House could start work on the president-elect’s legislative priorities. But it became clear early into the vote Friday that some of the hard-liners who had vented dissatisfaction with Johnson’s performance in the top post were intent on dealing him an embarrassing rebuke before allowing him to keep his job.

As their names were called by the House clerk, instead of voting, they stared defiantly ahead and remained silent.

By the time three other Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina — voted for lawmakers other than Johnson, it appeared that he was at risk of losing the gavel to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader.

But eventually, the six lawmakers who had initially withheld their votes changed them to support Johnson, R-La.

With three defectors, he was still short of the majority necessary to win reelection.

Johnson then huddled with two of the holdouts — first in the center aisle of the House floor, and then in an adjacent room — as the vote was held open for nearly an hour.

They returned together to the floor, and Self and Norman strode to the center of the chamber and changed their votes with Johnson looking on, handing him the support necessary to win another term, as Republicans stood and applauded.

Self said in an interview that he changed his vote after Johnson agreed to include more members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus in negotiations over the massive budget and tax bill that Republicans plan to pass later this year through a fast-track process to avoid a Senate filibuster.

“We know that this will be a heavy lift to get the Trump agenda across the line in the reconciliation package, so we shored up the negotiating team,” Self told reporters. “That’s all we did.”

Self and Norman were also pressed by Trump in a phone call coordinated by Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who alerted the president-elect when it appeared there were too many defectors to allow Johnson to prevail. She pulled Johnson and the two other lawmakers into a private room and put Trump, who was in the middle of a golf game, on speakerphone.

“He just said, ‘What’s it going to take to get a deal?’” Norman recalled. “I said, ‘Mr. President, we just want Mike Johnson to back you up so that you can get your deal; you can get everything you want.’ He said: ‘I get that. Mike’s the only one who can be elected.’”

Norman added that Trump continued to lobby them, saying: “We’ve got the most opportunity we’ve ever had — House, Senate, the trifecta. You don’t get that opportunity.”

Ultimately only one Republican, Massie, held firm in opposing Johnson, voting instead for Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican leader.

But even before the newly minted speaker left the House floor Friday, conservatives made clear that they harbored deep skepticism about his ability to lead their conference, and would feel no compulsion to follow his lead unless he acceded to their policy dictates.

In a scathing letter, members of the House Freedom Caucus listed their demands, writing that they voted for Johnson only “because of our steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors.”

“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” the lawmakers wrote.

Among their demands were that House Republicans “not increase federal borrowing” — as Trump has demanded they do — “before real spending cuts are agreed to and in place.” They also complained that Johnson had failed to promise that the major tax and budget bill the GOP is preparing to advance “reduces spending and the deficit in real terms,” or to stop putting legislation on the floor that requires Democratic votes to pass.

It all foreshadowed more headaches to come for Johnson, who will be working with a historically slim majority — which is on track to shrink by two members when they depart to join the Trump administration — and an embittered group of conservatives.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the Republicans who initially abstained but then voted for Johnson at the very end, made it clear that his reservations had not vanished and that there remained profound resistance to the speaker in GOP ranks.

“Everything we do needs to set the Congress up for success and to deliver the Trump agenda for the American people,” Roy wrote on social media. “Speaker Johnson has not made that clear yet, so there are many members beyond the three who voted for someone else who have reservations.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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