House Speaker Mike Johnson told Republicans they “cannot afford a palace drama” Thursday, as his speakership hangs in the balance of a razor-thin re-election vote that he admitted could come down to a one vote margin.
During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Johnson conceded that his fate is controlled by “a numbers game”: the House of Representatives will vote Friday on the speakership and some GOP hardliners, including from the right-wing Freedom Caucus, have suggested they might vote to take the gavel out of his hands.
The vote will mark the start of the new Congress, where Republicans will have the narrowest House majority in a century. Johnson acknowledged he can nary afford defections.
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“We’ll have a margin of probably two votes tomorrow during that so can only afford to lose one or two, but I think we’ll get it done,” he told the Fox News morning chat show.
In a pitch to his fellow Republicans, he pleaded with them to skip protracted infighting in order to move more quickly on President-elect Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda.
“We cannot afford any palace drama here,” he said. “We have got to get the Congress started, which begins tomorrow and we have to get immediately to work. We have to certify the election of Donald J. Trump on January 6, on Monday, and we have many important things pressing on us now. So there’s no time to waste.”
To that end, Johnson won the “complete and total endorsement” of Trump, who made his preference known in a Monday post on Truth Social.
The president-elect had previously left Johnson blowing in the wind, and the speaker’s standing in MAGA circles suffered turbulence just before the holidays due to headwinds blown by Trump pal Elon Musk.
The MAGA billionaire tanked a bipartisan spending deal Johnson struck with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown—a slimmed down agreement was later reached.
But Trump’s minions have rallied in recent days, looking to ward off a protracted parlor game and line up House support.
Punchbowl News reported Thursday that Trump’s inner circle is now “promising retribution” for Republicans who vote against the speaker and, by extension, the president-elect’s will.
“The president will take these attention-seeking antics by certain members as a personal slight — one that he won’t soon forgive or forget,” a Trump insider told the news outlet.
One prospective rebel, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), already backed a failed effort to oust Johnson last year and survived a primary challenge a month later. He has said he will not vote for Johnson on Friday and has remained withering in his denunciations of the Speaker.
“Even if he thinks he’s going to be the guy who does what Trump wants him to do—he’s not that good at it,” Massie told The Wall Street Journal of Johnson, adding that he “lacked either the situational awareness or the bravery to tell” the president-elect that his idea to suspend the nation’s borrowing limit for two years—which 38 Republicans voted against—would suffer a damaging rejection last month.
House representatives who remain on the fence about Johnson include Eric Burlison (R-MO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Andy Harris (R-MD), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Scott Perry (R-PA), and Chip Roy (R-TX).
Of the undecideds, Johnson told Fox & Friends he’s been in communication with them and expressed confidence the vote will ultimately break in his favor.
“I think we’ll get it done, I’ve talked to every single one of those friends and colleagues over the holidays,” he said.
“The reason they’re going to vote yes is we’re shifting into a new paradigm that begins tomorrow. We have the White House, the Senate and the House. It’s a totally different situation than we’ve dealt with in the last fourteen months since I’ve been Speaker.”
If Johnson is reelected, he also plans to bring forward a new rules package, unveiled Wednesday, that would make it harder to oust him by requiring the cosign of nine Republican lawmakers to introduce a motion on his control of the gavel.
Under the rules, Democrats in the minority would have no power to force a vote on removing the Speaker.
“It’s a very dark day for democracy in America if this is adopted,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, in an interview with Axios.
