President-elect Donald Trump told reporters he would make phone calls on behalf of House Speaker Mike Johnson to help Johnson keep the gavel.
Trump spoke to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve and reiterated his support for Johnson. A reporter asked him if he would make phone calls to Republicans who are skeptical of keeping Johnson as speaker.
“If necessary, but I think we’re going to have a great time, we’re going to get a successful vote,” he told reporters. “He’s a good man, he’s a wonderful person.”
Trump endorsed Johnson to stay as speaker earlier this week. The speaker and the president-elect had split this month because Trump demanded that a continuing resolution to keep the government open include a lifting of the debt ceiling, which ultimately did not happen.
But the two have remained close, with Johnson joining the president-elect and Tesla executive Elon Musk at a UFC match and the annual Army-Navy football game.
The 119th Congress is set to convene on Friday, when members will be sworn in, but not before the House votes for a speaker. Republicans will have 220 seats compared to the 212 Democratic seats, which is one less seat than Republicans have now.
With Trump picking various members of the House Republican conference to serve in his administration, that number will be whittled down significantly.
Some Republicans have already expressed their dissatisfaction with Johnson. Congresswoman Victoria Spartz of Indiana told Steve Bannon’s WarRoom that she would not vote for Johnson without hard commitments. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky also criticized Johnson in response to former House speaker Newt Gingrich on X/Twitter.
“Even if Mike’s entire goal is to do everything Trump wants without debate or question (which I would argue is not healthy for the institution of Congress), he’s not going to be good at it,” he said. “He already demonstrated this month that he won’t tell the President what is achievable and what is not achievable in the House, and he lacks the situational awareness himself to know what can pass and what cannot.”
Republicans hope to get to work as soon as possible to enact Trump’s agenda, particularly as they will gain control of the Senate on Friday after they flipped four seats in November’s election.
They will have plenty of work as they have to pass spending bills to keep the government open, deal with another debt ceiling increase and pass major pieces of the president-elect’s legislative priorities such as increased spending for security along the US-Mexico border.
