Mike Johnson’s grasp on speaker’s gav­el for sec­ond Trump term grows stronger

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Mike Johnson’s grasp on speaker’s gavel for second Trump term grows stronger

Hard-line con­ser­v­a­tive oppo­si­tion to House Speak­er Mike John­son (R‑LA) is weak­en­ing, clear­ing his path to keep­ing the low­er chamber’s most pow­er­ful posi­tion. 

Reps. Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene (R‑GA) and Thomas Massie (R‑KY) have sig­naled they may vote for John­son to remain the speak­er ahead of the low­er chamber’s lead­er­ship elec­tions next month. 

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The two law­mak­ers have been harsh crit­ics of John­son in the past, even lead­ing efforts to remove him from the speaker’s posi­tion. How­ev­er, their rhetoric this week marks a soft­en­ing toward John­son. 

“I will be sup­port­ing him for speak­er, of course,” Greene said dur­ing an inter­view with Politi­co. “He’s got every­one com­ing around him for him to be able to pass the agen­da that I’m sure he wished he could have passed this Con­gress.”

She had pre­vi­ous­ly slammed John­son for not lead­ing House Repub­li­cans to a stronger major­i­ty fol­low­ing the 2024 elec­tions. Although the GOP suc­cess­ful­ly held its major­i­ty in the low­er cham­ber, Greene blamed the speak­er for not help­ing deliv­er a “super major­i­ty” ear­li­er this month. Often crit­i­ciz­ing John­son for endors­ing large fed­er­al spend­ing pack­ages passed annu­al­ly by Con­gress, Greene led an unsuc­cess­ful cam­paign, which was joined by Massie, to remove him from the posi­tion in May. 

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Rep. Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene, R‑Ga., joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R‑Ky., says she’ll call a vote next week on oust­ing House Speak­er Mike John­son, R‑La., dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Capi­tol in Wash­ing­ton, Wednes­day, May 1, 2024. Rep. Greene, a staunch ally of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, is forc­ing her col­leagues to choose sides after Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers announced they’d pro­vide the votes to save the Repub­li­can speaker’s job. (AP Photo/J. Scott Apple­white)

Massie, who is a mem­ber of the House Free­dom Cau­cus, a group of con­ser­v­a­tives who often oppose estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans, also appears to be warm­ing up to John­son. 

“We’ve been talk­ing,” Massie told the Hill after he was pressed on whether he still opposed John­son. “We talked last week.”

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Com­pared to his pledge in Octo­ber not to ever vote for John­son as speak­er “come hell or high water,” Massie’s words indi­cate a marked turn in his favor. 

His now-ten­ta­tive stance fol­lows Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s move to endorse John­son to remain the speak­er, which like­ly pushed hard­lin­ers such as Massie and Greene to recon­sid­er their oppo­si­tion.

When asked if he would endorse John­son in Sep­tem­ber, Massie said, “I think it would take Trump’s endorse­ment to do that.”

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John­son already unan­i­mous­ly won the GOP’s nom­i­na­tion to remain the speak­er on Nov. 13. The speak­er elec­tion is on Jan. 3, giv­ing him rough­ly a month to nail down ten­ta­tive votes such as Massie. 

With a slim House major­i­ty, John­son can­not afford to lose the sup­port of more than one Repub­li­can if he wish­es to keep his posi­tion.