How Speaker Mike Johnson’s bond with Trump shapes GOP future
As Donald Trump walked into Madison Square Garden on a big fight night, you could almost miss the tortoise-shell glasses peeking over the president-elect's shoulder, two fingers pointing amid the thunderous applause.
Others in Trump’s entourage might have been more recognizable to the Big Apple crowd at the Ultimate Fighting Championship brawl — the world's richest man Elon Musk, musician Kid Rock, or UFC CEO Dana White. But House Speaker Mike Johnson was right there too, having the time of his life.
At the end of that "epic" mid-November weekend, he’d fly on Trump Force One, leaning over the seat backs with a close-lipped grin as Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., Musk and Robert F Kennedy Jr. posed with their in-flight McDonald’s meals.
Johnson had reason to smile. Trump had bested Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris less than two weeks earlier. Johnson was headed toward another GOP majority of his own. And the Louisiana Republican, a self-described “nerd constitutional-law guy,” had become a fixture of Trump’s inner circle.
Now, as they head into two years of total Republican control over the federal government’s levers of power, the alliance between Johnson and Trump may prove to be one of the most important relationships in Washington.
As the leader of a chamber with a historically tiny margin of control, Johnson will be instrumental to accomplishing Trump’s agenda in the narrow window of opportunity provided by unified government. As the party boss with unshakable influence over the GOP grassroots – and, by extension, the congressional rank-and-file – Trump will be key in helping Johnson keep his job as speaker. Trump's quixotic brand of politicking has already demonstrated what the next two years will be like, according to multiple lawmakers and congressional experts who spoke with Paste BN: Trump can derail Johnson's best laid plans, but Johnson may lose control without him.
Johnson "has correctly understood that he is only effective as a partner with Trump," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican who has been close with the president-elect throughout his political career. "Without Trump, you could never hold the Republicans together. That means there's a good bit of give and take in that relationship."
'MAGA Mike Johnson'
The House speaker and Republican president-elect come from different backgrounds.
Johnson is a 52-year-old Christian from the Deep South whose favorite song, at least when he came to Congress in 2017, was the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.” He is soft-spoken and scholarly, and was virtually unknown on the national scene when he claimed the speaker's gavel in 2023. Members praise – and sometimes complain about – his willingness to listen and his disinclination toward conflict.
Trump is a 78-year-old former Manhattanite raised amid wealth and who has been a celebrity since his mid-30s. He's been convicted of falsifying records of hush money paid to a porn star, and prefers television over books. He openly admires authoritarian leaders and demands loyalty from staff and allies.
Unlike the Republican speakers who came before him, Johnson's personal politics are considered more in-line with the former and future president. Former Speaker Paul Ryan quit two years into Trump's first term, citing the "identity politics" the Republican president amplified, while former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's relationship with the GOP leader had its rough patches, particularly when McCarthy withheld his endorsement of Trump's second presidential bid for months.
Johnson's pre-Congress career was as a lawyer championing socially conservative causes: Defending Louisiana's ban on same-sex marriage, fighting a high-profile case to shut down an abortion clinic, and working for the Christian legal advocacy group the Alliance Defense Fund (which is now the Alliance Defending Freedom). His predecessor, Rep. John Fleming, was one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus and the group's PAC was one of Johnson's biggest donors during his first campaign, though he never joined himself.
Before being unexpectedly vaulted to the speakership after McCarthy's ouster, Johnson was best known nationally for spearheading an amicus brief in 2020 supporting Trump's unfounded claims that he was the true winner of that year's presidential election. As speaker, he aligned with Trump in being openly skeptical of additional aid to Ukraine while his counterpart in the Senate, then-Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, insisted the GOP retain its Bush-era approach to foreign policy.
"The swamp is on the run, MAGA is ascendant," said then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on the day Johnson was elected speaker in 2023. "If you don't think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you're not paying attention."
Chaos around the corner
Late last month, Capitol Hill was winding down for the holiday break: Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy's taxidermized alligator named Alphonse had been sporting a Santa hat for weeks. Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett's 15-minute Christmas party featuring George "Santos Claus" had wrapped. And a stopgap spending bill that would mean the nation avoided a government shutdown appeared on a glide path to passage, despite grumblings from some House Republicans and Musk.
Then came the X post, just two days until the shutdown deadline: Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance took to Musk's social media platform to call the bipartisan deal that Johnson had negotiated "a betrayal of our country" and demanded Republicans slim down the bill and raise the debt ceiling.
It kicked off two days of chaos as Johnson scrambled to come up with a new plan that could meet Trump's demands, get the support of his House GOP members, pass through a Democratic Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden. Lawmakers narrowly dodged the shutdown – with a bill that lacked Trump's marquee request on the debt ceiling – and left town with a chorus of Republican lawmakers openly questioning whether they would support Johnson for speaker in an election two weeks later.
Republican complaints grew louder over the new year break, and Trump stayed silent as they piled up. Finally, he endorsed Johnson just days before the House vote.
Yet even with Trump's backing, Johnson appeared poised to lose on the first ballot when Congress reconvened at the beginning of January. Seven ultraconservative Republicans withheld their vote, while another three voted for different candidates, enough to deny Johnson the speakership and plunge the House into a brief state of limbo.
Over the course of the ensuing hour, Trump came to Johnson's rescue. The vote was held open as Johnson huddled on the floor and in adjoining rooms with the holdouts. Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, called his allies on the floor. Trump paused a game of golf to personally cajole Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. and Keith Self, R-Texas, to convince them to change their votes. Eventually, the seven non-voting members rallied behind Johnson – making it clear it was only "because of our steadfast support for President Trump" – and both Norman and Self flipped.
But for the speaker's critics and supporters alike, the showdown served as a harbinger of what's to come over the next two years in Congress.
"Those tweets landed with a big thud. It kind of reminded me of when that house came down on the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I mean, boom, it was over," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which oversees how federal dollars are spent.
Trump "has already said that he believes that Mike will be the speaker… but he did caveat it," Womack added, speaking to Paste BN in December. "If he will be strong, determined, fight and ultimately get what the president wants. Which is the problem – because that could be very difficult to achieve."
Johnson is now presiding over one of the smallest House majorities in modern history. When Trump takes office on Monday, Republicans will control the House 217-215, as sitting members take (or sought) new roles in the administration. When they are replaced in late spring, the final Republican majority is expected to be 220-215.
That means Republicans can only lose two members in the majority-rules House if they want to pass something along party lines, giving each member significant sway over every policy decision. The alternative is striking a deal with Democrats – potentially setting up legislation to be rejected by the GOP-controlled Senate or vetoed by Trump. And those Republicans who nearly stopped Johnson from becoming speaker to begin 2025 could band together to call a vote that could end Johnson's speakership.
Republicans have always had a "dissident" group, said John Lawrence, former chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who added that these factions are even stronger now because of the GOP's small margins.
"Everybody's a king – or everybody's a coup leader," he said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told Paste BN in December after both Trump and Musk came out against the funding deal that Johnson is "a pretty decent guy" but that "he's scared of his own shadow."
"I feel sorry for him," she said, "because he doesn't know who he's negotiating with either, and he's got a caucus that's super fractured."
Whether they're on the right or left side of the aisle, House members say they are preparing for more of the disruption they saw in late December. "Stay tuned. Buckle up. Strap in," Womack said. "This is going to be an interesting Congress to watch."
Trump's ally in Congress
While Johnson will likely need Trump to retain his seat, Trump will also need Johnson.
In recent history, trifectas in Washington have only lasted two years, which means the race is on to pass sweeping changes to taxes, immigration and energy policy before the 2026 midterm elections.
"By definition, everybody is a junior partner with Trump. Nobody’s his peer," Gingrich said. But "in order to be effective in our constitutional system, the (president) has to have allies in the House and Senate who can make it work. And I think he's concluded that Johnson is probably far and away the best ally in the whole conference."
Johnson's meteoric rise in the House to the No. 1 job took many by surprise. One GOP senator even had to Google him.
Back in October 2023, Johnson was the fourth Republican nominated for the speaker position – House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., was widely seen as McCarthy's natural successor but failed to sway several ultraconservative members. Then Judiciary Chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Trump's preferred pick, failed, followed by GOP Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn.
After three weeks of paralysis, Johnson grabbed the gavel. By all accounts, the congressman from Louisiana was the only candidate who hadn't made many enemies among either moderates or the far-right.
While the number of Johnson critics has grown since then, the speaker's colleagues largely say they stand by him and remain hopeful that his job will be made easier by a shared GOP interest in getting things done. They say he and Trump work well together – and privately acknowledge that no one wants to see the House back in a free fall.