By Eric Bradner, Annie Grayer and Sarah Ferris, CNN
(CNN) — After a chaotic week during which Home Speaker Mike Johnson discovered himself at odds, at completely different occasions, with President-elect Donald Trump, hardline conservatives and minority Democrats, he returned to an analogous joke.
Anybody else who might get the 218 votes it takes to win the speaker’s gavel was welcome to have it.
Johnson instructed reporters Friday night he’d spoken to Elon Musk, the billionaire ally of Trump who performed a key position earlier within the week in tanking the bipartisan deal Johnson had spent weeks negotiating, “about the extraordinary challenges of the job.”
“And I said, ‘Hey, you want to be speaker of the House? I don’t know,’” Johnson mentioned. “He said, ‘This may be the hardest job in the world.’”
It wasn’t the one time the Louisiana Republican made that joke this week.
“He does crack that joke quite a bit,” mentioned California Rep. David Valadao, a key Home Republican negotiator who was concerned in hashing out the spending plan that Congress authorized early Saturday, avoiding a shutdown that will trigger disruptions throughout the nation.
“In reality, I think we all know that getting to 218 in this conference today is not an easy task for anyone,” Valadao mentioned. “These past two years have been a little bit of a roller coaster, and we expect that to continue.”
Republicans are weeks away from having full management of the federal authorities, however this week previewed how, even with Trump having fun with GOP majorities within the Home and Senate and a conservative Supreme Courtroom subsequent 12 months, governing gained’t be simple. And specifically, it laid naked the problem Johnson will face with an excellent slimmer GOP Home majority, disparate factions warring with one another and Trump lobbing last-minute requests like his demand — to the chagrin of Home Freedom Caucus conservatives — to take the debt ceiling off the desk early in his presidency.
Because the week ended, many lawmakers left for the vacations fuming at Johnson for leaving them at midnight for a lot of the method of hashing out a authorities funding measure, and his speedy modifications in method.
“I’d love to have more transparency,” Georgia Rep. Mike Collins mentioned.
Nevertheless, Collins famous that Johnson — who gained the gavel after conservatives’ ouster of former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked off weeks of chaos in 2023 — retains Trump’s help.
“President Trump says he’s supporting him, and I’m supporting him,” Collins mentioned.
Trump — with a hefty help from Musk’s social media frenzy — on Wednesday killed the plan Johnson had spent weeks creating: a short-term spending invoice that would solely be handed with Democratic help. The president-elect additionally injected a brand new problem into the federal government funding debate, demanding that the debt ceiling, at present suspended however set to be reinstated at the beginning of subsequent 12 months, be prolonged to maintain that problem from dominating the early phases of his second time period within the White Home.
The speaker’s subsequent choice — a measure that will have heeded Trump’s demand by extending the debt ceiling into 2027 — faltered when 38 members of his personal get together, together with most Democrats, opposed it, underscoring the disproportionate energy of hardline Republicans in such a slim majority.
Lastly, on Friday — with six hours to spare earlier than the federal government funding deadline — Johnson and the Home GOP punted. The Home authorized a three-month spending invoice that included $110 billion for catastrophe aid and a one-year extension of the farm invoice.
It didn’t comprise the debt ceiling extension that Trump demanded.
And the entire votes towards the invoice had been Republicans — 34 of them.
Nonetheless, after the vote, Johnson claimed victory — and insisted he and Trump had been on the identical web page. The speaker mentioned he’d spoken with each Trump and Musk on Friday evening.
“Throughout this process, spoke with him, most recently about 45 minutes ago. He knew exactly what we were doing and why, and this is a good outcome for the country. I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well,” Johnson mentioned of the president-elect.
Musk, on X, the social media platform he owns, praised Johnson for trimming concessions to Democrats from the measure, saying it “went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.”
“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” Musk wrote.
Democrats, in the meantime, took a victory lap. Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries mentioned the get together’s votes introduced the invoice throughout the end line with many Republicans breaking ranks.
“House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme, MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working class Americans all across the land,” the New York Democrat mentioned.
Questions on Johnson’s future
The subsequent battle for Johnson will likely be retaining the speakership when the brand new Congress is sworn in on January 3.
Some Home Republicans who opposed the year-end funding invoice on Friday had been noncommittal on whether or not they’d help him.
Rep. Keith Self of Texas — who referred to as easy funding bills “the only way to govern” — mentioned he had “no comment” on whether or not he’ll again Johnson subsequent 12 months.
Requested if he thinks Johnson’s possibilities of being reelected speaker have been broken, Texas Rep. Chip Roy mentioned he’s “not gonna go down that road,” including, “We’ve got through tonight.”
As Home Republicans left city, a number of lawmakers instructed CNN they believed the Louisiana Republican’s future was not in quick jeopardy for a key purpose: No different lawmaker is in search of the job.
Privately, some Republicans acknowledge they’ve spoken amongst themselves about potential choices. Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan have all made bids earlier than and may accomplish that once more. However there was no energetic jockeying within the final a number of days, based on a number of GOP management sources.
Every other candidate would wish to first safe the votes, after which discover their method out of a troublesome January working with the Trump administration on spending, the debt restrict, expiring tax cuts, a large border bundle and extra.
One GOP lawmaker joked to CNN that in the event that they had been immediately nominated and requested to serve, they’d sooner resign.
And in contrast to the resistance towards McCarthy, Johnson’s sole detractor up to now is just not pushing others to hitch him.
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky mentioned he didn’t know of some other GOP lawmakers who could be siding with him.
“Not whipping it. Don’t know,” Massie mentioned when requested if different Republicans would be part of him in opposing Johnson.
The political actuality that Republicans don’t have an alternate, and Johnson appears to retain Trump’s help, didn’t cease many lawmakers from fuming on the speaker over how shut the Home got here to triggering a authorities shutdown.
Massie referred to as Johnson’s dealing with of the scenario “not that great,” saying the speaker had an absence of “situational awareness” to know the primary invoice “was a dog and it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“Then immediately, last night, immediately, with like, 12 hours notice, just throwing a debt limit increase into a bill because the president wanted it,” Massie mentioned, referring to Trump. “In some sense, there’s an institutional victory here, which is the president said jump, and we didn’t jump.”
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw expressed frustration with Trump’s last-minute determination to impose his calls for on Home Republicans after that they had already cleared a path to maintain the federal government open into the early days of the brand new administration.
“I will eat sh*t sandwiches, which is budget bills and debt ceiling increases, so that Trump has a great runway, but you’ve got to plan ahead to do that,” he mentioned.
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, who has repeatedly expressed dismay with how large spending bills are dealt with, referred to as the scenario “the sewer,” including, “It’s just what it is. It’s never any different.”
CNN’s Manu Raju and Ali Principal contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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