Rep. Mike Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to remain as House speaker, on track to keep the gavel after a morning endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump ahead of a full House vote in the new year.
While Johnson has no serious challenger, he faces dissent within his ranks, particularly from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus withholding their votes as leverage to extract promises ahead.
Trump told House Republicans, during the president-elect's first trip back to Washington since the party swept the 2024 election, that he's with the speaker all the way, according to a person familiar with the remarks but unauthorized to discuss the private meeting near the Capitol.
Johnson heaped praise on Trump, calling him the “comeback king.”
It’s been a remarkable political journey for Johnson, the accidental speaker who rose as a last, best choice to replace ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy more than a year ago and quickly set course by positioning himself alongside Trump and leading Republicans during the elections.
As Johnson tells it, Trump is the “coach” and he is the “quarterback” as they prepare for unified Republican government in the new year.
Johnson has embraced Trump's priorities: mass deportations, tax cuts, gutting the federal workforce and a more muscular U.S. image abroad. Together they have been working on what the speaker calls an “ambitious” 100-days agenda hoping to avoid what he called the mistakes of Trump's first term when Congress was unprepared and wasted “precious time.”
While Johnson expects to lead the House in unified government, with Trump in the White House and Republicans having seized the Senate majority, the House is expected to remain narrowly split, even as House control remains undecided with final races particularly in California still too early to call.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.