Yesterday, President-elect Trump threw his full support behind House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to lead the House again during a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers.
While Johnson was not facing any significant challenges, a group of conservative members have been threatening to slow the process down by demanding a recorded vote rather than unanimous consent for the election of the Speaker.
Trump told Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., to "stick together" in the next congressional term, two sources said according to Yahoo News.
Trump also promised the assembled Republican lawmakers he would "carry out the largest deportation operation in history," which earned cheers from House Republicans, sources said.
However, Mr. Trump was not all business, he also joshed with lawmakers allegedly saying, "I suspect I won't be running again unless you do something else, unless you say he's so good we've got to figure something out," he joked.
"We won it every way — all seven swing states by a lot … New Jersey is right, just a few points. It's got them very worried because they said, well, next time if we go up even a fraction of what we went up, you're going to win New York, you're going to win New Jersey, you're going to win places that weren't winnable. California, too," the President-elect said with characteristic optimism.
And Speaker Johnson seemed much steadier in the job than he did before the election.
However, President Trump’s endorsement may only temporarily paper over the real divisions in the House Republican Conference.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris of Maryland did not rule out a challenge.
“Last I looked, this is America and having two people in a race is kind of the norm,” Mr. Harris said. “We can do this Soviet-style, or we can do this American-style.”
Although the Speaker has become close to President Trump, Alex Miller of the Washington Times reported some conservatives disagreed with Mr. Johnson throughout his speakership, taking issue with his decisions on Ukraine aid and government funding bills.
If Johnson does garner a challenge, it will likely come from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia or Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Both launched a failed attempt to oust him from the speakership this year that garnered support from nearly a dozen conservatives.
So far, no Republican lawmaker has publicly announced a challenge.
It appears that, despite the simmering discontent among rank and file House conservatives, President Donald Trump’s endorsement is enough to save Mike Johnson’s position, at least for the moment.
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