Welcome to Washington: Mike Johnson Gets a Taste of the Hell That Awaits Him in January

After a difficult first year on the job that included intraparty fighting on everything from government funding to foreign military aid to tax reform, Speaker Johnson is getting his first real taste of the hell that awaits him in January. His long-negotiated bipartisan government funding deal is dead thanks to the narrow House majority he holds and the outside agitation of one of the Trump campaign’s biggest donors.Welcome to Washington, where Mr. Johnson’s strife began in earnest on Tuesday night, when House Republican leadership unveiled a government spending plan that would keep the lights on through mid-March. The legislation was negotiated between Democratic Senate leadership and Republican House leadership over the course of weeks, but thanks to the public pressure campaign from billionaire Elon Musk, the government is poised to shut down on Friday at midnight. GOP leaders had considered a simple extension of current funding levels through the spring, though with so many members retiring this year and so much last-minute lobbying for legislation that was considered this past Congress, Mr. Johnson was forced to add some pricey items to the list: disaster relief funds, additional money for farmers, and a member and staff pay increase, among other things. In total, this legislation alone will cost just less than $400 billion between now and March. The backlash was instant. As always, conservative members of the House and Senate railed against the spending additions and the way in which the more than 1,500 page bill was dropped on members on Tuesday night before. The most important blowback came, though, from the co-commissioners of the government efficiency board, Mr. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, posting constantly on Wednesday about how bad the bill was. Mr. Musk called the bill “criminal” and erroneously referred to a 40 percent pay increase for members of Congress and $3 billion for stadium construction in the nation’s capital that was supposedly in the bill — but turned out to be two things which are in no way included in the legislation. The online campaign left Mr. Johnson’s deal dead by the end of the day on Wednesday — just 48 hours before the shutdown is set to begin. The bill was necessary only because Democrats currently control the White House and the Senate, where 60 votes are required for passage. While Mr. Johnson may have a Republican majority in his chamber come January, along with GOP control of both the House and Senate, he will have no easier time running the House than he did on Wednesday. Several members tell the Sun that Mr. Johnson’s political future is in doubt due to his handling of the situation — a situation that likely won’t get better as his majority shrinks to just 217 members for the first two months of the new Congress, when they plan to consider border security funding and a tax overhaul. Congressman Thomas Massie announced Wednesday that he would not vote for Mr. Johnson, under any circumstances, when the new Congress convenes to elect the speaker on January 3. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Congressmen Ralph Norman, Byron Donalds, and Tim Burchett all tell the Sun that they will make up their minds at a later date. Mr. Johnson can afford to lose just two votes on the floor when he tries to win the speakership again, assuming all Democrats vote for the minority leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Yet few Republicans were willing to stand up to publicly defend Mr. Johnson once the onslaught started in earnest on Wednesday. A former member of the House — Senator Lankford — had stern words for those who are threatening to take down Mr. Johnson’s speakership bid on the floor in January, which is what happened to Speaker McCarthy in 2023. “I have a hard time with anyone blaming Speaker Johnson,” Mr. Lankford tells the Sun, saying that it was the fault of Senate Democrats and Senator Schumer for not getting their own spending package done through regular order, which requires the chamber to pass 12 individual spending bills. “Republicans that are blaming Speaker Johnson are missing the obvious: Schumer was the one that was holding all this stuff up, and we couldn’t have any kind of bipartisan agreement early on.”“It all got crammed up to the end, so I don’t blame Speaker Johnson,” Mr. Lankford says. Despite Mr. Lankford’s defense of the speaker, Mr. Johnson won’t have the luxury of quiet assurances from friends when he is tasked with getting legislation through the House. Because Trump already poached three GOP House members to serve in his cabinet, Mr. Johnson’s majority will fall to just 217 members, while Mr. Jeffries has 215 seats in his pocket. This means that every House Republican would have to vote for Mr. Johnson’s legislation on the floor if he wants it to pass. The demands will be constant — from conservatives, from moderates, from the president, from senators, from Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy, and from the über online ecosystem in which Republicans seem to now stew. While he may not agree with her politics, Mr. Johnson is more likely than not feeling like Senator Murkowski did on Wednesday night. When asked by the Sun how she felt about Trump throwing out the bipartisan funding deal, Ms. Murkowski simply let out a sigh.

Welcome to Washington: Mike Johnson Gets a Taste of the Hell That Awaits Him in January

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