House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) took the gavel amid threats from the House Republican right wing, but things won't get any easier for House Republicans from here.
Friday's dramatic speaker's vote in the full House of Representatives saw three Republicans narrowly shielding Mr. Johnson from the gavel, with two of them pivoting to support him, making Mr. Johnson the next president of Trump. It aims to implement the president's ambitious legislative agenda with a razor's edge, highlighting the challenges ahead. The House majority is thin.
Ahead of the vote, about a dozen Republicans withheld their support from Johnson, demanding he commit to spending cuts and a more open process for developing major legislation.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who had withheld his support for Johnson until the vote, said there was widespread dissatisfaction with the way Johnson handled December's short-term spending bill despite his warnings. mentioned.
Mr Roy told reporters after Mr Johnson was elected: “If something similar to what we had before happened just before Christmas, it would have an impact.''
Roy said the purpose of many members initially holding off on voting for speaker was “to make it clear at the meeting that there is a bloc of people who actually want to see our policies implemented. There was,” he said.
Shortly before the vote, Mr Johnson released a public statement pledging to be involved in a working group to implement government cuts reform. And after securing the gavel, he tolerated intense scrutiny from members.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters after the vote: “The situation is very different from the last parliament, and I could be held responsible for that.'' “We must implement a bottom-up, member-driven process on this critically important bill and make it successful. We have no margin for error.”
Johnson's top priority now is to craft one or two bills packed with Trump's agenda, such as extending the Trump tax cuts and addressing border security, and creating a partisan “reconciliation” package that avoids threats. The aim is to pass the bill through the “process.'' About the Democratic filibuster.
But for Johnson, getting finicky House Republicans to support the policy could be as difficult a challenge as securing the speaker's votes for re-election.
In razor-thin House majorities, opposition from just one or two members can sink any partisan policy. Currently, there are 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats in the House of Representatives, but that gap will become even smaller if more House members join the Trump administration.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (RS.D.); In an interview on NBCKristin Welker of Meet the Press, which conducted the House Speaker selection campaign, said Johnson is doing a “really, really hard job” with the extra room he has.
“He has a lot of guys who are looking in different directions,” Thune said. “So, you know, in such close margins, individual members of Congress can have a lot of influence.”
“We need to work closely together as a Senate and as a team with the White House to accomplish the agenda we want to accomplish for the American people,” Thune said.
Plans for the big bill, a priority for President Trump, faced new problems last week after the president made last month's unexpected request to raise the debt ceiling. In response to President Trump's request, House Republicans struck a handshake deal in December to raise the debt ceiling in the reconciliation bill by $1.5 trillion, combined with $2.5 trillion in spending cuts.
But as predicted by Rep. Ralph Norman (R.S.C.), one of the Republicans who voted for a candidate other than Mr. Johnson before switching to Mr. Johnson, the idea behind these cuts and their sudden It will be very difficult to meet spending demands.
“When a reconciliation bill is introduced and people have to make sacrifices, every dollar spent here has a champion, so fight for it,” Norman said. talked about.
Mr Norman added: “If a cut is defined as a cut in increases, that doesn't make sense to many of us and we're not going to put up with that.”
Another Republican, Rep. Keith Self of Texas, who switched his vote from another candidate to Mr. Johnson, said Mr. Johnson's promises about who would write the massive bill led to his support. He said that it helped him gain .
“We have strengthened our reconciliation team because we know this will be a heavy lift to get Mr. Trump's policies across the line in reconciliation,” Self said. “So we strengthened our negotiating team. That's all we did.”
Self did not provide details on who the negotiating team would be, but said it would include members from outside the leadership, such as members of the House Freedom Caucus.
House Republicans are scheduled to hold a daylong planning session on President Trump's agenda bill on Saturday.
Johnson's struggles don't end there.
Eleven hardline conservative board members, including Roy, also sent a letter warning to Johnson.
Members said they voted for Johnson to be Speaker of the House “in unwavering support of President Trump and for the timely certification of electors,” but that they had “sincere reservations about the Speaker's record.” Ta.
In the letter, member states said the settlement should reduce spending and budget deficits, allow members to propose amendments to the bill, and that leadership would give members 72 hours to make amendments. They made many requests, including the need to comply with the rules. Read and discuss the proposed legislation.
The number of MPs named in the letter is notable given the new nine-member threshold needed to trigger an immediate vote on removing the Speaker, known as a “motion to resign.” If the 11 people banded together, they could oust Mr Johnson as Speaker of the House of Commons.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), one of the 11 signatories to the letter, said the threat of expulsion is an important accountability measure.
“You have to be careful. No one wants to have a sword over their head, but we have a motion to resign for a reason,” Ogles said of Johnson. “He's been given a job. He has to go do it.”
Mike Lillis, Mychael Schnell, and Rebecca Beitsch contributed.
