Speaker Mike Johnson Keeps His Gavel, After Two Flipped GOP Votes
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This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. Washington Wise from Charles Schwab is an original podcast that unpacks the stories making news there. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. House Speaker Mike Johnson wins his gavel back on the first ballot after two Republican holdouts changed their votes to him at the last second.

Is this an end to the GOP disarray in the House or merely a preload to it? Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with The Wall Street Journal.

We're joined today by my colleagues, columnist Bill McGurn and editorial board member Mene Ukebarua. It was a drama-filled Friday in the House of Representatives, though a shorter one than many observers were expecting, with Speaker Mike Johnson snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on the first ballot. The initial vote for the Speaker of the House gave him 216, just shy of the 218 needed for a majority.

The C-SPAN feed I was watching announced that they were going to a second vote in the House, but not clear where Republican dissenters would go from there. Recall that Speaker Kevin McCarthy two years ago needed 15 ballots to get over that majority threshold threshold.

But then at the last second, Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, who had initially voted for somebody other than Mike Johnson, flipped their votes to him, giving Johnson a first ballot victory. Let's listen to a clip of Speaker Mike Johnson. Here he is addressing the House shortly after being reelected speaker. We have a mandate and that was shown in the election cycle. People want an America first agenda. They do.

Sadly, for the past four years of divided government, too many politicians in Washington have done the opposite.

Open borders and over-regulation have destroyed our cities and stifled innovation. Inflation and weak leadership have left Americans poorer, and they have placed our country in a perilous position. That's right. And here's the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, addressing the House. The American people need us as their elected representatives in this season to put down our partisan swords and pick up bipartisan cloud shares.

It's time for us to come together, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to get things done for the people. In that spirit, House Democrats will work hard to find bipartisan common ground with our Republican colleagues in the incoming administration on any issue whenever

and wherever possible. Bill, what do you make of this result? A first ballot victory for Speaker Mike Johnson. The one Republican still voting no was Thomas Massey, Congressman of Kentucky. He had been pretty explicit that he was never going to vote for Mike Johnson. He said, you can pull all my fingernails out.

But, Bill, remarkable to me that two Republicans, after dissenting, voting for somebody else, decided to switch their votes. Yeah, I mean, I was like everyone else watching the whole thing. It reminded me, last night I watched the Sugar Bowl and watched Notre Dame, and I'm sitting there watching Notre Dame have these dumb penalties.

called, and I'm screaming, throwing my hands up in despair, denouncing the whole team and everything. By the end, I was kind of mollified when they won. I feel that way about Republicans, that it was a big victory for Johnson to get the votes changed. I mean, it didn't look like it was going to change anytime when it happened. It's interesting, though, it looks like a replay of what happened before. In fact, Johnson had a smaller majority to work with.

And yet he had fewer dissenters and they put it down pretty quickly, the rebellion. So, you know, people forget these things when they go on. They got a lot bigger fish to fry in terms of the agenda and they'll need every vote they can. I also last thing point is like last night when I was playing the whole team for a few weeks.

penalties by other people. You know, people are complaining Republicans don't have their act together. It wasn't Republicans. It was three out of 200 something, right? It was a really tiny fraction of people that were gunking things up. Most of the party was agreed what had to be done, what had to be done now. And eventually they got it done. I take Bill's point that the narrowness of the Republican House majority here, historically narrow, closely divided Congress,

is a huge part of the problem. But, Manet, the fact that these two dissenters, Ralph Norman and Keith Self, changed their votes does make me wonder whether these Republican bomb throwers have learned something from the chaos of the previous Congress, starting with those 15 ballots in

for Kevin McCarthy. Then the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and weeks of infighting as Republicans with the narrow majority that they had before were struggling to settle on a successor to Kevin McCarthy. Jim Jordan was not able to get the votes. Steve Scalise was not able to get the votes. Eventually, they settled on this guy that few, I think, national Republicans had maybe heard of, Mike Johnson. And to my eye, he's done a pretty fair job of managing the difficult circumstances that

that he finds himself in. But maybe part of the story here is that these Republicans may not like all of the things that Johnson has done in leadership, but they decided that sticking with him was better than waltzing out into the unknown. I think there's some truth to that. It's very likely that some of the hardline members of the House Republican caucus are

wanted to send a signal to Mike Johnson that they expect him to govern in a completely different way in the coming Congress than he did in the previous one. Of course, in the previous Congress, there was a Democratic Senate.

Mike Johnson understood that to get anything over the finish line, he was going to have to negotiate with Democrats. And often he wasn't able to get the Republican support he needed to pass important funding bills. And so he struck a deal after deal with Democrats, which included a lot of really big concessions on spending levels and other priorities that very conservative members were naturally very upset about. But they weren't really doing everything within their power to help get him out of that situation by making sure that all the

needed Republican votes were lined up behind a relatively conservative funding bill. I do think that Republicans are not necessarily out of the woods in terms of Johnson's ability to lead the caucus. Yes, Self and Norman changed their votes and allowed Johnson to be elected speaker on the first ballot. But you did also see several House Republicans sending an open letter to Johnson, essentially signaling their opposition to how he led

in the previous Congress and saying that they expect him to make really firm commitments on policy, on procedure. And so I think a lot of them really didn't want a mess right now because the House needs to certify the presidential election, because they want things to proceed in a smooth way, and also because President Trump weighed in. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're unified behind Johnson. I think, in fact, if there had been an alternative candidate to Johnson,

something that we didn't see. A more conservative member who put his hand up to potentially be elected speaker, we would have faced the possibility of going several rounds before he was declared the winner. But for now, they just wanted to settle the issue of having him elected, but they're probably preparing to put pressure on him in a whole lot of ways that could complicate Republicans' efforts to actually legislate in coming months. Bill, what's your take on this? And I'll read a few lines from

from this letter that Manay is referring to, I believe. This is a letter released about a half an hour ago shortly after Johnson's victory by the Board of the House Freedom Caucus. It says, "Dear House Republican colleague, today we voted for Mike Johnson for Speaker of the House because our steadfast support of President Trump

and to ensure the timely certification of his electors. We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the Speaker's track record over the past 15 months." Then it goes on to list a set of demands that the House Freedom Caucus wants, including cut rampant inflationary spending significantly, not increase federal borrowing before real spending cuts are agreed to and in place, fully secure the border, and so forth.

Bill, I mean, I think that Mike Johnson probably shares those underlying goals, even if he has to deal with the reality of trying to lead and knowing that he has this narrow majority trying to have the responsibility to get bills over the finish line. But that letter does look like kind of a shot across the bow and a suggestion.

that the unexpected array, as opposed to disarray, that the Republicans are in in the House right now on this Friday afternoon might break apart again as soon as we get to some of those legislative hurdles, passing some kind of a spending bill, raising the debt limit, what have you. Yeah, I mean, that's what legislation is. I probably share...

90%. I may share 100% of their goals. And that's what you can do with the majority that has a majority in the Senate and the White House. You can get some of your stuff passed through. But just as they don't like continuing resolutions at the end, the big spending blobs with everything in it, take it or leave it, this is not the arena for those fights. For

fight on legislation, make a case for what you want and persuade the other guys to go along. And the idea that you can get these things or even move closer to these things just by being obstinate

I think it's ridiculous. I think Monet mentioned it. The fact that there was no alternative candidate for Speaker, and worse, no alternative agenda. It's just not Mike Johnson. We don't like him because what he did as Speaker. There was no alternative, literally, to him as Speaker. I think it's a futile gesture. You don't get things done. You have to make compromises and push ahead.

And they have all the stars in alignment with Trump in the White House and John Thune in control of the Senate. Now is the time to push forward. I think this other stuff is virtue signaling. Hang tight. We'll be right back in a moment.

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Welcome back. One thing notable about Johnson's approach here as well in trying to lock up these votes is that he argued, at least publicly, that he was not going to make side deals and concessions. Here is the speaker before today's vote.

Mone, I think that's an interesting approach saying there is no quid pro quo for a vote here. I don't make commitments in exchange.

And maybe, again, going back to the theme here of learning from the past two years, that was a lesson taken from Kevin McCarthy, who made concessions to the rabble-rousers in exchange for initially getting the speaker's gavel.

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a principle held by many effective leaders that in order to do the job well, you have to be ready to lose it, to give it up for the sake of doing what you think is necessary at any given moment. And I think Mike Johnson, if you look at how he ended up as speaker in the first place...

He put his hand up fairly late in the process after several days of failed attempts, A, to reelect Kevin McCarthy after Gates issued that motion to vacate the chair, other candidates who stepped forward and failed to be elected like Jim Jordan. And I think it's

likely that Mike Johnson stepped into that role thinking, someone needs to fill it. I have good relationships with the House Republican caucus. I have a vision that's aligned with President Trump and with Republican voters. I'm willing and able to do this job. But wasn't someone who had always dreamt or imagined that he'd be in that position and is going to cling to power no matter what.

And so he knows that he's not going to be able to lead effectively if he allows himself to be ousted by a single member the way that Kevin McCarthy did. He's not going to be able to pass legislation if he makes a lot of preemptive policy concessions to members in return for being able to lead effectively.

He wants to keep a free hand. And if that means that people aren't going to support him, then I think that he would say, well, someone else can come in behind me and take up the job if they prefer, which seems to be the right approach and one that's going to at least make it possible for Republicans to be able to pass legislation in the coming Congress, which is the entire goal. One thing that the House majority is now poised to do is raise taxes.

the threshold for that motion that former Congressman Matt Gaetz used to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. In the last Congress, any single member of the House could call a motion to vacate the chair, which would basically be a vote of referendum on whether the Speaker should keep the gavel. And the Republicans are now poised to raise that to nine people. Bill, how much do you think that that secures Mike Johnson's position, at least

for now. I mean, it strikes me as a big difference between one and nine when you're talking about majorities this small. And those who wanted that threshold set to one member in the last Congress basically wanted to hold it over Kevin McCarthy's head for every move that he was figuring out to make. Yeah, a leader can't function under those rules.

And it's a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. And Kevin McCarthy had it. Look, there's one vote against Speaker Johnson, Thomas Massey. Would he be able to use it? That'd be enough. It's insane to be ruled by less than half a percent of your caucus.

And that's effectively what did. Nine votes doesn't entirely eliminate the threat, but at least it means there would have to be more of a consensus, more of a movement, a groundswell, rather than one cranky guy who doesn't like you and is willing to go against everyone and gum things up. So I, like you, think it's a very big development and development in the right direction because

The other big difference between now and then is that two years ago, Republicans were in the minority. So there wasn't much they could do anyway, except block some things, maybe mitigate some other things. Now they have a whole agenda they want through. And I think to put limits on yourself,

And to prevent the majority from functioning the way a majority should is self-defeating. A couple of other factors here. One is the departure of former Congressman Matt Gaetz, reelected in November, but had said that he would not be sworn in. Notable there because that removes an instigator from the House Republican conference.

If you were watching the C-SPAN video when the clerk, whoever was in the chair, announced that Gates would not be taking that seat, there was some applause in the chamber. I'm not sure which side of the aisle it came from, maybe a little bit from both. But notable that that did not change the majority threshold. There are 435 House seats.

The Speaker needs a majority of them. That's 218. And removing Matt Gaetz drops that number to 434. Still 218 needed for a majority. If you have 217, then it's an evenly divided House. So that didn't change the math at all, but maybe removed another thorn in the side of Speaker Johnson. And then, Manay, you mentioned earlier that

Trump's steadfast support for Speaker Mike Johnson. This is from his Truth Social post this morning, 8.18 a.m. Good luck today for Speaker Mike Johnson, a fine man of great ability who is very close to having 100% support. A win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party. Yet another acknowledgement of our 129-year most consequential presidential election, a big

Affirmation indeed. M&A, I mean, I think that that's the other part of the different context here is we are three days before January 6th when the presidential electors for President Trump are supposed to be counted. Nobody wanted to hold up on that.

or any doubt about what was supposed to happen with that. We do have Republicans about to take a trifecta of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. There is a lot that they want to get done. It seems like, at least for now, President Trump is an ally in backing up Speaker Mike.

Donald Trump legitimately likes Mike Johnson. If you look at the Republican convention, he had Mike Johnson sitting up in the grand tier along with his inner circle allies from that very first day before he accepted the nomination. Mike Johnson has been traveling around the country with Trump and other inner circle members since 2016.

the election, and they seem to get along really well. I think he sees him as a friendly guy who shares his priorities, is good at his job. It's hard to imagine Trump being as chummy with Kevin McCarthy, for example, if he had still been speaker. That's just very difficult for me to imagine. I think that they have a good relationship just person to person. But first and foremost, I do think that it is about Trump thinking Mike Johnson is the person to actually spearhead his legislative agenda. I'm sure that

President Trump remembers how his push to repeal Obamacare was stymied by John McCain's dissent in the Senate and doesn't want a replay of anything like that if there's too much chaos reigning among congressional Republicans and think Mike Johnson is the best positioned person to be able to strike deals with members and make sure that everyone is able to stay in line. And so he wanted to make sure that his second term doesn't begin with legislative chaos

I'm sure his advisors were mentioning to him how important it would be to have Congress all squared away before he takes office so that they can begin to hammer out the tax bill, border and energy, those other legislative priorities that Trump really wants to see pushed through. Hang tight. We'll be right back after one more break.

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Welcome back. A couple of other strengths that I would add, Bill, on Mike Johnson's asset ledger is he comes across as, at least to me, pretty thoughtful, a real constitutionalist, dare I say, a bit of a constitutional nerd. And he seems like he listens to his members. And that is a big part of the Speaker's job is not only trying to drive

the party's agenda, but knowing where his caucus is, where the objectors are, what their objections are, what might be able to get them over the line on a bill. And I think that that's part of what has allowed him to succeed where Kevin McCarthy did not was, A, a lot of those Freedom Caucus members probably know that on the merits, Mike Johnson is on their side. And B, he seems to take them seriously and listen to them and try to take their concerns on board.

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. First of all, in substance, Mike Johnson, I think, is a principled conservative. He's very much a constitutionalist. He very much understands the importance of process, especially with the Democrats' threatening process.

all the time, whether it's abolishing Electoral College or the filibuster or something. He understands the importance. He's very steady in that. And I think you put your finger on, he's a speaker. But I think the people that dissent

feel he at least listens to them respectfully. You know, for some fights you can't avoid, but some fights you can. People, they demand certain piece of legislation where you take this position, but what they'll settle for

is often a respectful hearing. We say, yeah, I understand your point, but the Republican conference has decided to go in a different direction. Okay, people have to live with that. I think how you deliver the news is very important when you're in a leadership role. And he seems a very calm individual, not given to grandstanding. And so far as I can see, also, when he has disputes,

unlike, say, Matt Gaetz or something. He keeps them private. You know, that's what a leader has to do. Menae, we'll give you the last word, but a big victory, it seems to me, for Mike Johnson getting this Speaker gavel on the first ballot instead of an interminable process. Today, maybe the Republicans would have to take a break. But I do wonder how long this honeymoon is going to last. And it's the same problem facing Speaker Johnson as was facing Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is if you can't keep

a majority of your party on side for the bill that you have to pass to keep the government open, to keep military service families paid, to keep Social Security checks going out, to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its debts when it's approaching that debt limit, then he's going to have to go to Democrats to get some votes to give those must-pass bills over the finish line.

And I guess we'll have to wait and find out in the months to come whether he can convince some of those people who voted for him today for the Speaker's gavel that it's worth doing that and sticking together as a Republican Party instead of having to go to the other side to get those votes. Yeah, I think one saving grace for Mike Johnson in the coming months may be that with regard to the top legislative priorities that Republicans have coming into the term, they're

There is a good amount of unanimity on some of the issues, particularly border and energy. Those are two big areas that President Trump and most Republicans want to address. And in the past Congress, despite the fact that Democrats controlled the Senate and the White House, Republicans managed to actually pass legislation, H.R. 1.0.

on energy and HR2 on the border, which will provide a template for some of the policy agreements that they're going to have to hammer out when they're trying to actually get something passed into law. And so the amount of policy legwork that's already been done in advance, I think, will help to keep people on side and limit debate. But

You're completely right when it comes to some of those funding bills. I do think that there are a lot of members of the Freedom Caucus and others who just are opposed as a matter of principle to taking any vote that's going to increase federal spending. And so that means that Mike Johnson is always going to be under a lot of pressure when the deadline starts approaching for those things. But he knows that better than anyone and is probably already strategizing about how he can get members on his side.

Thank you, Manay and Bill. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at pwpodcast at wsj.com. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button. And we'll be back next week with another edition of Potomac Watch.