Tag: Battle

CNN
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House Speaker Mike Johnson’s allies are leaning into a key argument in a bid to avoid a chaotic floor fight over the gavel on Friday: A vote against Johnson could delay the finalization of Donald Trump’s White House win.

A day before the speaker’s election, Johnson, who has been endorsed by Trump to keep the top leadership post, is still racing to win over multiple GOP holdouts, a scenario that some Republicans privately fear could lead to another days-long protracted floor fight.

But this time, there’s a huge shadow over the race: Congress has never before tried to certify a presidential election without a House speaker in place. Even senior Republicans say it’s unclear what would happen if there is no speaker on January 6 — when Congress is scheduled to certify Trump’s win — and they’re not eager not to find out.

“To oppose Johnson now weakens the GOP and strengthens Hakeem Jeffries. It also puts at risk the Electoral College Certification scheduled for 6 Jan. These guys serve as a ‘fifth column’ for the Dems,” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told CNN.

The House can’t conduct any official business without a speaker, which means there are no clear options to certify Trump’s win without one, according to multiple sources. The message so far from Congress’s own parliamentarians to party leaders has been: Elect a speaker before January 6, according to one of those sources.

Republicans are also acutely aware that they will have a narrow window to push through their agenda once they take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. Trump’s inauguration is set to take place on January 20, but the election results need to be certified by Congress before he can take office.

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota told CNN that Republicans need to get to work quickly to begin to advance Trump’s agenda with the GOP trifecta in Washington.

“If we spend even a moment fighting over who should be the speaker, we will have squandered that time. There is an acute understanding of that fact,” Johnson said. “The problem is, we have some more colorful members who maybe view things differently.”

Trump chose to publicly endorse Johnson this week because he believes he has a mandate to run Washington once he is sworn in, and he wants a speaker who will not only be loyal to him, but will also carry out his agenda, two Trump advisers told CNN.

While Trump and Johnson have had their disagreements in the past, most notably when Trump moved at the eleventh-hour to sink a spending deal Johnson had negotiated with the Senate, advisers tell CNN Trump believes Johnson will help implement his policies in Congress.

“(Johnson) has showed Trump over the last year that he will back him up from the House,” one of the advisers told CNN.

With those high stakes, Johnson and his whip operation have been racing in recent days to lock up support for the Friday vote. The main task for the team, according to one person involved, is to make sure there aren’t any surprises among the GOP conference, as members have been scattered across the country for the holiday recess.

Johnson faces a difficult path: A historically narrow majority leaves him little room for error. If every House lawmaker shows up and votes, he cannot afford to lose more than one member of his conference to win the gavel. And one Republican lawmaker has already said he won’t support Johnson.

Still, many feel confident Johnson will eventually land the votes, especially after Trump’s endorsement and given that no other Republicans are jockeying to run against Johnson.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday night that he would make calls on Johnson’s behalf to fellow Republicans, if necessary, but said he believed Johnson would “get a successful vote.”

“He’s the one that can win right now. People like him. Almost everybody likes him,” Trump said. “Others are very good too, but they have 30 to 40 people that don’t like ‘em, so that’s pretty tough.”

“Mike Johnson was in a good spot before President Trump’s endorsement. Clearly, he’s in an even better spot now,” Rep. Dusty Johnson told CNN.

Trump had initially planned to endorse Mike Johnson for speaker on New Year’s Day, however, Johnson suggested he should do it sooner, he told a local Baton Rouge radio station. Trump ultimately endorsed him on Monday.

“I’m going to be with him (Trump) at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Day. We’re going to map out some strategy, and he wanted to take photos and do a big endorsement on that day. I called him yesterday and said, ‘Mr. President, let’s go ahead and do that,’ so he did,” Johnson told News Radio 710 KEEL with a chuckle on Tuesday.

The question now, according to many Republicans, is how much drama Johnson will need to endure before he gets the gavel.

At least 14 Republicans have said they are undecided and one GOP member, Rep. Thomas Massie, has said he is firmly against Johnson, according to CNN’s most recent count. And at least five have said they are unmoved by Trump’s endorsement of Johnson this week, including Reps. Andy Biggs, Tim Burchett and Chip Roy. Other members including Reps. Victoria Spartz and Andy Harris have asked for commitments from the speaker in exchange for their support.

“I remain undecided, as do a number of my colleagues, because we saw so many of the failures last year that we are concerned about that might limit or inhibit our ability to advance the President’s agenda,” Roy, a Freedom Caucus member who frequently clashes with leadership, said on Fox Business on Tuesday.

Even so, many GOP lawmakers and senior aides feel that Johnson has done the best he could in a difficult situation and say there is not widespread sentiment to push him out. That’s particularly true given it’s unclear who, if anyone, could win the job if Johnson bowed out.

“To beat a horse, you need a horse,” one GOP source said. “Once the president came out, it took the wind out of any opposition sail.”

While the speaker has no formal role in certifying the presidential results, the House needs to be called into session to count the electoral votes and finalize the win. Traditionally, without a speaker, the House can do nothing besides vote to elect a speaker, vote to recess and vote to adjourn. Lawmakers can’t even be sworn in or set the rules of the House.

“You’re literally just stuck in a cyclical pattern of speaker votes with the clerk overseeing,” one GOP source said, describing what would happen without a speaker at the start of a new Congress.

And unlike during the House’s last speaker-less debacle in 2023, there will be no temporary leader poised to take over. When former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted, Rep. Patrick McHenry took over as speaker pro tempore – serving as a temporary speaker – because he was McCarthy’s pick when he first took the gavel. But in the 119th Congress, a speaker would first need to be elected before he or she can appoint a pro tempore.

Some experts argue that it’s possible the House could elect a temporary speaker to guide the chamber through the certification process before deciding on a permanent leader.

Some Republicans are privately discussing ways to push the procedural limits so that Congress could certify Trump’s win without a leader. One person described an “emergency break glass option” that would involve allowing the House to vote to go into a special session. But that would be a tough sell for many institutionalist Republicans.

Another option that is being privately floated around Washington: Pushing the date of Trump’s election certification.

“There is no constitutional mandate that it’s got to be on Jan. 6,” another GOP source said, as long as it happens before January 20, the date of inauguration.

Even former Rep. Matt Gaetz — who has previously clashed with Johnson and his leadership team — suggested his colleagues should back the current speaker rather than risking Trump’s election.

“We could never have held up McCarthy two years ago for concessions if a Trump certification hung in the balance. Now, it does,” Gaetz said on X, calling resistance to Johnson “futile.”

CNN’s Manu Raju and Haley Talbot contributed to this report.