As Mike Johnson navigates a spending deal that relies mostly on Democratic votes — a congressional sacrilege in the GOP — Donald Trump appears to be keeping quiet.
For now, at least.
Republican speakers haven’t exactly had the best track record managing Trump.
Paul Ryan’s relationship with the former president started on flimsy ground, with Ryan calling out then-candidate Trump repeatedly and Trump eventually crusading against the speaker. While the two found ways to work together on cutting taxes, it was rocky for most of Ryan’s time in Congress, with Trump often bashing the spending deals Ryan and Republicans reached.
Kevin McCarthy’s relationship with Trump was much warmer — Trump famously referred to him as “My Kevin” — but McCarthy certainly never controlled Trump, and Trump was never afraid to speak his mind when he disagreed with McCarthy. (Trump also didn’t try to save McCarthy when GOP rebels ousted the former speaker.)
Now, there’s Johnson. A year into his speakership, Johnson seems to have reached a détente with Trump, even as he fails to deliver on the former president’s wishlist. Johnson has even openly defied Trump. He passed Ukraine aid with the help of Democrats. He reauthorized a surveillance law that Trump opposed. And now, Johnson is averting a government shutdown — and not getting the proof-of-citizenship requirements that Trump wanted for people registering to vote — after Trump said Republicans should shut it down if they didn’t get those concessions.
Somehow, Johnson has seemingly persuaded Trump not to criticize the continuing resolution, with Johnson privately telling colleagues he convinced the GOP nominee that a shutdown isn’t in his or any other Republicans’ interests. And somehow, Trump is even sticking his neck out to defend Johnson against some of his harshest critics, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It’s a very un-Trump thing to do.
Johnson’s GOP colleagues have certainly taken note of the relative and unexpected harmony, though most suggested the relationship is still tenuous and temporary.
“Who gets along with anybody in this town?” Rep. Jack Bergman asked NOTUS on Tuesday. “You don’t have friends in this town. You have allies for the moment. And so he’s an ally for the moment.”
The question for Johnson — and the future of his speakership — seems to be how long can he keep Trump at bay. And whether Trump will actually be there for him when Republicans inevitably come for Johnson’s gavel.
There’s no shortage of Republicans who are all too familiar with Trump’s tactics or the sway he has over GOP lawmakers. Just ask former Trump cabinet secretary Rep. Ryan Zinke who will really influence the House next Congress. “President Trump has historically as much influence” as the speaker, he said.
If the Ryan-era is any indication, Zinke is right that, historically, Trump has had a massive influence on the House. And GOP lawmakers are familiar with Trump’s fair-weathered attitudes and his demand for absolute loyalty. They also know that any speaker who thinks they can control Trump is mistaken.
As Rep. Monica De La Cruz put it: “President Trump is in charge of President Trump, and I think he’s proven that he’s not going to be managed by anyone.”
The GOP’s latest internal spending showdown has, once again, proven that Trump can be difficult. The former president twice called for a shutdown if Johnson couldn’t force those proof-of-citizenship requirements onto the stopgap spending bill. His pleas prompted Johnson to try to do things Trump’s way. But when that failed, the speaker went his own direction, announcing he would advance a mostly clean continuing resolution and keep the government up and running.
Usually, that would be the part where Trump sounds off and tries to make the vote as toxic as possible for Republicans. But, shockingly, Johnson seems to have convinced Trump to let it go — at least for now.
That could be because Trump blames the GOP holdouts, not Johnson, for derailing the SAVE Act plan — as Johnson privately told lawmakers this week — or it could be because Trump genuinely sees how a shutdown could damage him personally.
Lawmakers in meetings with Johnson on Monday and Tuesday told NOTUS they felt the speaker successfully got through to Trump. “It seemed like there was an agreement,” Rep. Don Bacon said, that Trump would keep his frustrations to himself.
But how did Johnson pull that off?
Trump allies told NOTUS that regular, frank communication between Trump and Johnson has been key to maintaining their relationship thus far. Trump and Johnson talk regularly, but they both keep the details of their conversations private. Since becoming speaker, Johnson has also visited Mar-a-Lago to see Trump at least three times publicly. And Johnson visited Trump last week when the former president was in Washington.
“Johnson is a pretty honest broker, which has been surprising up here in D.C.,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who is close to Trump, said when asked about how Johnson has navigated the former president.
Trump-loving Rep. Carlos Gimenez had a similar assessment. “He has a good rapport with the President,” he said of Johnson, whom he called “very personable, likable, but also very persuasive.”
“Are he and the president going to see eye to eye on everything? No. But nobody does, right?” Gimenez said. “No two people ever do. But I think he has a way of communicating why he’s doing the things he needs to do in order to be an effective speaker. And I think that the President is listening.”
Rep. Tim Burchett — who told NOTUS on Monday that Johnson’s speakership could depend on his ability to stay in Trump’s good graces — said on Tuesday that he’s not sure Johnson keeps Trump at bay so much as he keeps him in the loop.
“I think he keeps him informed,” Burchett said.
Still, Burchett had a warning: “I don’t know that anybody controls anybody in that regard.”
Even if Trump stays quiet on Johnson’s spending moves, his allies haven’t exactly done the same. On Sunday, the right-wing activist and informal Trump adviser Laura Loomer took aim at Johnson on X: “Have you noticed how UNBOTHERED 99% of GOP lawmakers are tonight about @MikeJohnson dropping the ball on the Save Act?” she wrote.
Other Trump acolytes have been similarly harsh.
Rep. Ralph Norman foreshadowed the tension bluntly. “Mike has got to please 434 people. Trump’s got to please the nation,” he said.
Some members believe that Johnson is just useful to Trump at the moment, that their relationship is purely transactional. As one member described it to NOTUS, if Trump wins the election, he’s going to want someone else to helm the House Republican Conference. Trump will “probably like that person just as much as he likes Speaker Johnson right now,” the GOP member said.
Johnson detractors who took down his original spending plan with the SAVE Act are also interpreting Trump’s maneuvers in a less-than-friendly light for Johnson.
While Rep. Greg Steube initially told NOTUS he “can’t comment” on Johnson and Trump’s dynamic, he added that the former president had made his position on the CR “pretty, pretty plain.”
For Trump disciple Rep. Clay Higgins — who authored the CR and SAVE Act plan — whether Trump and Johnson are on the same page, and can stay there, defies any simple characterization.
“I don’t know if there is a page,” Higgins told NOTUS. “More like a chapter.”
But as the House vote on the CR approaches on Wednesday, for every minute that passes, Johnson gets closer to a vote where Trump didn’t speak out against him or a bill that the speaker considers to be must-pass. That is a lot more than Johnson’s predecessors can say about how they managed Trump. And however he’s doing it, it appears to be working.
As House Oversight chairman James Comer put it: “I think he’s doing a good job.”
“He’s doing a good job with a tough job,” he said.
—
Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.
Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.
Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Katherine Swartz, who is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow., contributed to this report.