What's New
House Speaker Mike Johnson's future looks increasingly uncertain, with Republican lawmakers and President-elect Donald Trump both criticizing his proposed short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown.
Republican Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie became the first lawmaker to publicly state he will not vote to reelect Johnson as speaker on January 3. "I'll vote for somebody else," Massie told Politico. "I've got a few in mind. I'm not going to say yet."
Newsweek has contacted Johnson's and Massie's offices for comment via email.
Why It Matters
The government will shut down on Saturday unless Congress passes funding. Several GOP lawmakers have scrutinized the bill unveiled by Johnson and other congressional leaders on Tuesday. The stopgap bill would have funded the government until March 14, and included add-ons such as $100 billion in emergency aid and a one-year farm bill extension, which were pushed by Democrats.
With the GOP's slim 220-215 House majority, Johnson will need near-unanimous support from his Republican colleagues to get reelected as speaker on January 3. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was removed in October 2023 after GOP lawmakers condemned his negotiations with Democrats to pass a stopgap funding bill.
What to Know
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Johnson's spending plan was scrapped after Trump came out against it.
Massie has been a longtime critic of Johnson. In May, the Kentucky congressman and Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene failed in their attempt to vacate Johnson as speaker after he worked with Democrats to pass a $1.2 trillion federal spending package that avoided a partial government shutdown.
A handful of hardline House Republicans have expressed hesitation about supporting Johnson's reelection bid in light of the spending deal proposal.
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar told reporters on Wednesday that he cannot guarantee support for Johnson in January. Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has also said he is currently undecided.
"Let's look at the way this has been handled; it's been horrible," Biggs told Politico.
Tennessee's Andy Ogles told The Hillthat discussions about alternatives to Johnson for House speaker next month are "the most I've ever heard."
On Wednesday, Ogles posted a poll on social media asking followers who they think will be the next House speaker. The list featured Johnson, Florida's Byron Donalds, Ohio's Jim Jordan, and Minnesota's Tom Emmer.
Fox News reported that the other three GOP congressmen are being floated as possible challengers to Johnson in January.
The GOP will enter the next congressional term with a 220-215 seat majority in the House. Former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz's seat is expected to be vacant after he resigned from office, following him originally being tapped by Trump to be the next attorney general.
With 219 Republican seats during the speaker vote, Johnson cannot afford more than one GOP defection to secure a simple majority, assuming all 215 Democrats vote for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have added pressure on Johnson, criticizing the continuing resolution (CR) and calling for a debt ceiling increase to be included.
"Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we'd rather do it on [President Joe] Biden's watch," Trump and Vance said in a joint statement. "If Democrats won't cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?"
Previous negotiations between McCarthy and Biden to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a potentially catastrophic default took months.
Trump and Vance's last-minute intervention forces Johnson to balance appeasing the president-elect and his allies while renegotiating the bipartisan spending plan and averting a shutdown within days.
Johnson's precarious position amid the spending bill fallout has been underscored by online bookmakers.
At the start of the week, Polymarket, a platform where users bet on the likelihood of world events, gave Johnson a 94 percent chance of being reelected as House speaker. By Thursday morning, that figure had fallen to 67 percent.
What People Are Saying
Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, told Newsweek: "If the Republican Party Caucus in the House can remember before the November election, I'd think they'd try to avoid removing Johnson, given the fallout from the ousting and replacement of McCarthy. I'd also think President-elect Trump will, if necessary, intervene to prevent this, as it wouldn't be a good start to his administration."
President-elect Donald Trump speaking to Fox News Thursday morning: "If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker."
Maryland Congressman Andy Harris told Axios: "There's an increasing number of people, after what happened this week, who said they are on the fence."
Florida Representative Greg Steube told The Hill he is undecided about backing Johnson: "He committed to the conference a year ago that we weren't going to govern by CRs anymore, and we've done five. And 43 days after we get a mandate from the American people, we're going to work with Democrats to do stuff, when a Republican Senate comes in in two weeks?"
Kentucky Congressman James Comer told CNN: "I think the only way Mike Johnson does not get reelected speaker is if Donald Trump came out and said he preferred someone else. Then, we'd have to go through the process again."
House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC News Tuesday: "I'm not worried about the speaker's vote. We're governing. Everybody knows we have difficult circumstances. We're doing the very best we can under those circumstances. These are the hard choices that lawmakers have to make, but we will get the job done, as we always do. We will keep moving forward, and in January, we have a new lease on all this."
What's Next
If no agreement on a spending plan arrives this week, the government will shut down starting Saturday.
The House speaker election, in which Johnson will seek to retain his role, is scheduled for January 3, 2025, the opening day of the 119th Congress.
English (US) ·