Speaker Mike Johnson. Maybe.

The GOP’s razor thin majority works against Johnson’s reelection, but he’s got Trump now on his side.

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

Things are blissfully quiet out there in legal and political land. But they’re about to get heated, and a big test comes on Friday, January 3 when Congress gathers and Republicans attempt to elect a speaker.

By all rights, that job should go to the current speaker, Mike Johnson. After all, he’s running unopposed, and he’s the default candidate, with every other high level GOP House leader having either been pushed out or shut out of the job last year.

But Johnson still has some hurdles to overcome, and the consequences of failing to elect a House Speaker at this critical juncture could leave us adrift in truly uncharted political seas.

The math is hard for Republicans

The GOP’s majority is a slim 219 to 215, thanks to the departure of alleged sex trafficker Matt Gaetz. But what does that mean for Johnson in practical terms?

To win election, a speaker must gain the majority of votes cast in the House. If there are a possible 434 votes (with one seat unfilled), that means that half of that is 217. But that’s exactly half, not half plus one. And he would need half plus one.

The fact that Johnson needs 218 votes, not 217, winds up mattering here. That’s because Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has already said he will vote “present” instead of “yes.” Since making his announcement, Massie has continued to be openly critical of Johnson’s leadership.

With Massie not on board, that means Johnson can win the Speakership only if no other GOP member abandons him. And there are some warning signs that not everyone is ready to fall in line.

For example, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) tweeted that “we still need to get assurances that @SpeakerJohnson won’t sell us out to the swamp.” She did not specify what form those “assurances” would need to take. And there remain some true bomb throwing extremists in the GOP ranks, such as Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who are completely unpredictable and often unhinged. Anything could happen with them.

We already know what such a precarious hold on the majority can lead to. It gives any single GOP House member enormous clout with which to seek concessions, just as the far-right extremists forced through two years ago with former speaker Kevin McCarthy. Those concessions can include plum positions such as on the powerful Rules Committee. They can also mean additional single-member powers, like the one McCarthy fatefully conceded allowing any single member to bring a motion to vacate the chair. That wound up toppling McCarthy, and Johnson is well aware of the risks.

With any one member able to hold his entire speakership hostage, Johnson basically has no cards to play.

The Freedom Caucus gets to set the terms

There are 38 members of the Freedom Caucus, the group that recently voted with nearly all Democrats recently to prevent the debt ceiling limit from being raised as Trump had demanded. Their leader is a fellow named Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who has also equivocated in his support of Johnson.

Harris told Newsmax on Monday that Johnson must “make some changes” to secure his vote, “Or we might need new leadership.” Harris remarked there are at least a dozen House Republicans who remain noncommittal about voting for Johnson.

A vote for Johnson is a bitter pill for many in the Freedom Caucus. Indeed, the far right is having to reach mighty far to find reasons to support Johnson, sometimes with comical results. Here’s an example from Rep. Tim Burchette (R-TN), who recently remarked that Johnson “doesn’t cheat on his wife” and that he “finds that very appealing in Washington D.C.”

That is a low bar indeed. But notably one that the president-elect can’t even cross.

Squeezing blood from a stone

The odd and frankly pathetic thing is that Johnson is already so weak that he regularly has to turn to Democrats to enact must-pass legislation such as continuing resolutions to fund the government. For this, he has earned the ire of the radicals who want to slash government spending by the trillions or shut it all down. But even the extremists understand that the alternative to Johnson may be no speaker at all.

If Johnson isn’t made speaker, there really isn’t anyone who could step up and win 218 votes. That would leave the House GOP conference completely rudderless, meaning no House business could be conducted at all. In this sense, Johnson is the default, lowest common denominator. To borrow the words of Winston Churchill, Johnson is the worst choice for speaker… except for all the others.

While some nihilists would relish the paralysis of government at that level, the lack of a Speaker likely would prevent the House from convening for the Electoral College vote count on January 6. That in turn would endanger the inauguration of the president-elect on January 20, which would be the worst kind of self-inflicted political wound imaginable.

That realization may be why Trump finally came around to fully endorsing Johnson in a social media post last night despite his earlier scathing criticism. We can skip past the pathetic self congratulations and his lies about the Democrats and focus on his last few sentences, which are all that really matter:

“The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!”

(Narrator: Odd capitalizations aside, the praise of Johnson as a “good, hard working, religious man” was rich in irony, coming from an evil, lazy and blasphemous one.)

Johnson naturally welcomed the endorsement and responded ebulliently online, tweeting:

Thank you, President Trump! I’m honored and humbled by your support, as always.

Together, we will quickly deliver on your America First agenda and usher in the new golden age of America.

The American people demand and deserve that we waste no time. Let’s get to work! 🇺🇸

The irony of course is that Johnson will be able to provide no relief at all for America consumers from things like high grocery prices and interest rates. And he will not be able to deliver anything “quickly” and will continue wasting time while heading up the most unproductive Congress in history.

Specifically, once in office, just as he is now, Johnson will be unable to pass much of anything without help from the Democrats. Sure, he can move bills to the House floor, but he can’t get any off it with only GOP votes. For that he’ll need to turn to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to help him govern and pass legislation, just as he had many times last year for any bill of consequence.

Adding to Johnson’s misery, within a few weeks, Republicans will be down another two House members because of vacancies created by Trump appointments. This means the balance in the House, as least for a few critical weeks, will be 217 to 215. During that time, a single “no” vote by any GOP member will sink any bill, giving any and all Republican members enormous leverage to become hostage takers in order to get what they want.

Not so fun fact: If I’ve read the complicated rules for succession correctly (and some have disputed this interpretation, but we have no way to say for sure as it’s never happened in the history of our country), in the event the winners of the electoral college vote are not certified by Congress as the president-elect and vice president-elect, then per the rules of succession the job after January 20 goes to the existing House Speaker… of which there will be none.

In such a case, the job goes then to the president pro tempore of the Senate, which traditionally is the most senior senator in the majority party in that chamber. In this case, and because this is the worst of all timelines, that person is Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is going to be 92 years old this January.

So while we may get a chuckle and a few satisfying shakes of our heads should the GOP implode once more on Friday, we might grow increasingly nervous should they spend weeks or even months trying to elect a Speaker. Post January 20, we would enter an extremely vulnerable stage as a nation, with an addled acting president and no one at the helm in one chamber of our legislature.

In any normal, functioning government, all GOP House members would unanimously support Mike Johnson, allowing Republican economic policies to be put to the test as actual legislation, given that they control both Congress and the White House. But these aren’t normal times, the GOP can’t pass a bill to save its own life, and we won’t know until Friday whether there will be anyone actually at the wheel.

Deep breath. And remember, this is their fight, so we’re not going to interrupt them should they begin to eat each other alive.

Happy New Year!

Jay

A programming note: I will be off tomorrow on New Year’s Day and writing for The Big Picture on Thursday about that pesky debt ceiling question. The Big Picture is a team effort, and I am a regular contributor there, but it is a separate publication from The Status Kuo. To receive my piece in The Big Picture on Thursday, you can subscribe to that substack for free (or as one of our valued paid supporters) here.