Just over five months ago, Mike Johnson declared himself a “wartime speaker.”
He said he was prepared to take on the Republican factions who wanted to oust him. And for a moment, it seemed like Johnson had won the war, beating back the 11 rebels who tried to strip him of his gavel when he put Ukraine funding on the House floor. (Democrats came to Johnson’s rescue and refused to let him lose his speakership over Ukraine aid.)
But as Johnson searches for the votes on a doomed government funding bill, his speakership is once again under siege — and he’s looking more embattled than ever before.
It’s not that Johnson is going to lose his gavel this Congress. The reality is there are so few legislative days left in the term that an ouster would be meaningless anyway. But he is in trouble next Congress, assuming Republicans hang on to the majority and Johnson even tries to be speaker again.
Basically, Johnson has two problems: government funding now, and maintaining the speakership later. But both issues are related. To hear Johnson’s Republican colleagues tell it, the speaker’s future is riding on his ability to shepherd the House GOP through this latest impossible spending fight. He has to avoid a government shutdown and extract Democratic concessions and keep Donald Trump on his side.
The problem is there is almost no possible way to achieve all of those objectives. Armed with only less bad options, he can order — at most — two dishes. And if that’s the case, it’s Johnson who might be on the menu.
“I think he’s cooked,” one Republican lawmaker texted NOTUS Tuesday night.
Reactions from House Republicans about Johnson’s future on Tuesday night ranged from indifferent to apoplectic. Some are clearly ready for a change. Others acknowledge that Johnson’s inability to pass a government funding bill with only GOP votes is due to the same Republicans who are complaining about him.
“You got to give us the votes, this is what you want,” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole said last week. “Because it’s not like it was the appropriators voting or rebelling against this. So, the people that asked for this got a chance to get it. I think that’s a pretty good move by the speaker. He fought the good fight.”
Rep. Austin Scott noted that Johnson had been handed “an extremely difficult set of cards, just as Kevin McCarthy was given an extremely difficult set of cards with a very small margin.”
“Mike’s set of cards is probably actually a little more difficult,” Scott said.
Others still were more matter-of-fact about it.
“He can’t make up votes,” Rep. Rick Allen told NOTUS. “He doesn’t have mystical powers.”
Regardless of his mystical powers, Johnson is moving ahead with a vote on Wednesday to keep the government open for six months. And as he tries to avoid a shutdown, he’s attaching the SAVE Act — a GOP bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
But as just about everyone in Washington knows, Johnson’s spending plan will fail. And at that point, the question is whether he can just bring up a clean continuing resolution to avoid a shutdown, or if he’ll have to engage in more — as GOP Rep. Thomas Massie has dubbed it — “failure theater.”
No one seems very convinced that this process ends in anything but a clean CR, and few in the GOP are thrilled.
“There’s a lot of disappointment in how he’s handled the job,” Rep. Paul Gosar told NOTUS Tuesday night. “There’s been opportunities, that’s for sure.”
Johnson’s opponents within the conference haven’t forgotten his use of Democratic votes during key moments of his speakership. Both to move Ukraine aid out of the House and to prevent being vacated as speaker, Democrats have provided the votes to make Johnson’s agenda possible.
That’s bad news for any GOP leader, even if your conservative credentials are sterling.
“When you’re the speaker, the buck stops at you,” Rep. Cory Mills told NOTUS. “And I mean that in every way possible.”
“I don’t think that this [CR] is the catalyst,” he said of Johnson’s problems. “But I’m sure that, for some, they are tallying this into their considerations of how they actually vote next election.”
It’s been apparent for a while now that Johnson doesn’t have the votes to pass his legislation. Conservative Rep. Clay Higgins — the author of the CR and SAVE Act package — told NOTUS he spent the weekend with Johnson trying to win over holdouts, a coalition of Armed Services Committee members worried about military funding and staunch conservatives opposed to stopgap spending.
Higgins said those conversations left a lot to be desired. Or, as only Clay Higgins could put it, “Basically, like, the shifting sands of the conference did not ultimately create perhaps the beach that we prefer.”
In other words, Higgins knows the bill is going to fail. But he’s sympathetic to Johnson’s efforts, and he acknowledges that the speaker may be in a no-win situation.
“This town is trying to eat that man alive,” Higgins told NOTUS.
As to why Johnson is putting the bill on the floor knowing that it will fail, Johnson’s office directed NOTUS to what the speaker said last week, that he wants “any member of Congress, in either party, to explain to the American people why we should not ensure that only U.S. citizens are voting in U.S. elections.”
“We are gonna work on that issue around the clock because we have an obligation for the people to do it,” Johnson told reporters. “And that’s what the fight is.”
But the fight is also about demonstrating to his own conference that he simply doesn’t have the votes, that he has no option but to give in to Democratic demands and put a clean CR on the floor — at least if Republicans want to avoid a government shutdown before the election.
“One thing you cannot have is a government shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. “It’d be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election, because certainly we get the blame. And one of my favorite old sayings is ‘There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.’ We’ve been here before.”
Senate Republicans think Johnson has to show his conference that he has no option but to use Democratic votes to keep the government open. Senate Minority Whip John Thune said Tuesday that he was holding out hope that Johnson could send the Senate something by the end of the week.
“I assume they go to plan B if they can’t get this thing across the finish line,” Thune said.
Essentially, Johnson needs to show his conference that Republicans are in this position because of his detractors, not him. The reason Republicans have no leverage to negotiate with the Senate is because the House can’t pass a GOP bill. And the reason they can’t pass a GOP bill is because of the very voices saying Johnson isn’t fighting hard enough, as if he could somehow bend Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to his will if he just tried harder.
It’s a similar dynamic with the speakership. Even if the GOP retains the House majority, there may be no Republican lawmaker who can secure the 218 votes required to clinch the gavel next Congress. But just as McCarthy became a victim of there just being too much history, too much bad blood, Johnson may be in a similar position come January.
“Johnson is the head of a very diverse, passionate and emotional body,” Rep. Ryan Zinke told NOTUS. “I think he’s riding that wagon pretty well because it’s a tough wagon to ride.”
Others just don’t see the wagon as the issue. They think it’s Johnson — and they suggested he’d have a tough time keeping his job.
“In order for Mike to maintain that spot, he’s going to need Democrats to help,” Rep. Troy Nehls said.
“Jim Jordan would’ve been a great speaker,” he added. “Donald Trump would’ve been the greatest.”
Influential Freedom Caucus member Rep. Ralph Norman acknowledged that other potential speakers might be waiting in the wings. “You can see by their actions,” he said, “they’re jockeying into positions.”
For his part, Norman left his options open.
“We’ll see who runs,” he said. “Mike’s honest. He’s had a tough job. We’ll see how it is.”
For another Johnson detractor — Rep. Greg Steube — the perpetual plague of approving what conservatives see as bloated spending bills has left the swamp intact under Johnson. That neglect of fiscal responsibility fuels his irritation with Johnson, with the speaker moving bills at COVID-19-spending levels instead of forcing a showdown with the Senate and the White House to earn Republican victories.
“There’s a lot of members that are frustrated,” Steube told NOTUS last week. “Depending on what the majority looks like in January or after November, I certainly think it’s going to be challenging for him to get 218 on the floor.”
If Rep. Austin Scott is right, and Johnson’s situation is worse than McCarthy’s, that doesn’t bode well for his future. Confidence in the speaker is at or near an all-time low. And if you ask his chief antagonist — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — whether there’s something Johnson can do to gain the trust back, she won’t give you a very hopeful answer.
“We don’t have a time machine to go back in time, so I don’t think so,” Greene said.
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.
Ben T.N. Mause is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.
Katherine Swartz, who is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed to this report.