Special Coverage: Mike Johnson Wins House Speaker Vote
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. Now the governing can begin, Tim and Carol. We got through the formalities. He can swear in the members now. Listen, he's got to feel relief, no doubt about it. But Joe Matthew, I always wonder about politically, you know, how this looks. Better that it didn't go to a second round or a third round. Nobody would argue that. But that he didn't get it easily without having to have some negotiating going on. What are the implications potentially of that? Or do we start governing next week and everybody forgets about it?

I don't know anybody will forget about any of this. Let's remember, he will have a majority. If Donald Trump gets the members he requested to join his administration, a majority of one. So when you see Mike Johnson talking to Hakeem Jeffries on the floor there, rest assured, they're going to have to work together to make anything happen. The next step, of course, once we get through this swearing in the membership, they're going to have to craft out a plan, an agenda that will include border security and extending the Trump tax cuts.

They're going to have to avoid a government shutdown. They're going to have to deal with raising the debt ceiling. Doing all of that with a majority of one is going to be very complicated for Mike Johnson, who is now making his way toward the speaker's rostrum so he can reclaim the gavel. A lot of happy folks here. But to your point, I think, Carol, the hard part actually starts now. Did this vote today send any sort of message about the power of Donald Trump?

Mike Johnson was backed, is backed by Donald Trump, but not everybody in the party fell in line today. Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Tim, they both late in the game endorsed Mike Johnson. We can argue that it might have helped him actually get this done on the first round, remembering that this had to happen today for the vote certification on

Monday, the 6th of January, right? This is the next January 6th we're walking up on here. You need to have a Congress to do that. That's a joint session where that takes place in the very chamber that we're looking at now. And you'll see Kamala Harris preside over that vote certification. That was a point of leverage that Kevin McCarthy didn't have, that even Mike Johnson didn't have the last time around.

And I suspect that Donald Trump was involved in those conversations today. We saw Nancy Mace hand her cell phone over to Ralph Norman at one point. Wonder who was on the line there and whether that was a Florida area code. That's the way this thing takes place now. That's the way it's done now. And what would normally be kind of a formality, you have to grind the gears a little bit when you have so few people on your side in this Republican conference.

I got to say, Joe, I want to go back to something earlier you said, and it's something that we have many conversations with folks around this table, investment experts who are wondering exactly what a Trump White House, a second Trump White House ultimately gets done. You talk about this slim majority that will be there on the House and the work that Mike Johnson will have to do to really reach across the aisle. Um,

it does, it is indicative of maybe not everything or not to the extremes in terms of the policies we heard from Donald Trump on the campaign trail ultimately get carried out. Well, that's true. I mean, remembering, of course, you've got a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican White House. If it's ever going to happen, it's now. But yes, the real argument will likely fall along the lines of this tax code reform. It's not just as simple anymore, right, as extending the Trump tax cuts. You have to add,

No taxes on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social security, mortgage interest. There were so many others involving auto loans and things that nevermind salt. We haven't mentioned salt yet. Can you get all of that into one bill? That's a, that's a tall order. So when you look at promises made on the campaign trail, you have to get into the granular and whether that's in fact possible here. We're looking at this live shot, by the way, of, of chip Roy in the back of, uh, the, uh,

the chamber along with some of his fellow members of the freedom caucus who were, you know, the troublemakers, if you will, in this case for Mike Johnson, even though he closed the deal on round one. But what we're going to see next is the speaker in the rostrum where he'll be introduced by Hakeem Jeffries and handed the gavel. Hmm.

And this is the moment that they wanted, right? They've got their family members, their kids are with them in some cases today. This is supposed to be a big rah-rah photo op for the conference, and they'll get to that eventually. Once we get, by the way, back to Washington and back to governing in a week or two, it's also the confirmation hearings that need to take place for Donald Trump's team. And those are not going to go very easily for the likes of Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. So before we even get to writing legislation, Carol, there are going to be some bumps on the road for this Republican majority.

Is Thomas Massey one of those bumps on the road?

Well, boy, he sure was today, although, you know, everyone saw it coming. So I feel like they just kind of factored him out. He's made very clear that he's not about to change his vote for Mike Johnson, no matter what he is promised. So I think it's some of the other members, the Chip Roy's. Marjorie Taylor Greene was on the side of Mike Johnson in this case. Andy Biggs, some of those folks, Andy Ogles in the Freedom Caucus who don't like the way Mike Johnson handles budgeting. The fact that he has worked with Democrats so far, they might be more the thorn in his side.

You know, all right, just to rehash, if you're just joining us on radio TV across our platforms, Republican Mike Johnson winning reelection as House speaker, overcoming resistance from a small but pivotal group of conservative hardliners after a flurry of last minute talks and with the help of a critical endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.

You know, Joe, you understand the workings of Washington and what goes in and around the nation's capital so well. It will be an interesting second term of Donald Trump and most already say it's going to be different from the first White House. I am curious if you were sitting down, though, with the speaker, what would be your first question to him?

Boy, you know, how often do you guys talk? Because a lot of people think Donald Trump is the real speaker. And you've got arguably Donald Trump on one shoulder and Elon Musk on the other. So this is really framed by many, the hardest job in Washington, at least the most unwanted job in Washington, is being the Speaker of the House with such a narrow majority.

I guess I'd ask him, to what extent are you willing to work with Hakeem Jeffries as well? Because they're going to need each other to do anything in this case. It's not so much a power-sharing agreement in the traditional sense when you'd have a real tie. But with one member, my goodness, they're going to have to work together on a lot of things here. And that's going to make life more challenging for Mike Johnson. The question is, again, how quick can they get to the border? That's what people want to see, those who brought Donald Trump back to Washington. And that will likely be the first bill that you see emerge. How tenuous is...

Speaker Johnson's position right now. I think back to the challenges that former House Speaker McCarthy faced just a couple of years ago before this. How tenuous is his position right now? It's less tenuous simply by the math. Tim, they're going to be voting on a rules package that I referred to already here. That's one of the next procedural things that will take place. That changes that motion to vacate. We kept talking about the procedure through which you fire the Speaker.

When it was Kevin McCarthy, he made a deal to get that gavel by bringing it down to a single member. That's partly why Matt Gaetz is famous at this point, because he took care of that, no longer in the House. And by the way, he didn't show up today, as some thought he might. That number increased to nine. Now, it would take nine members to trigger a vote to fire the Speaker.

So you've got a little bit of breathing room for Mike Johnson procedurally, but also politically, because he's got Donald Trump at his back. He's got Elon Musk behind him and will likely be in much better shape in this Congress than anything we saw in the last. I will say that we do have members of Congress.

the House weighing in. Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania say, while I maintain my reservations about Speaker Johnson's leadership record, today I voted in support of President Trump's agenda. We will hold Speaker Johnson accountable to accomplish the Republican agenda. And talking about specific issues, he must secure our Southern Border Institute, commence House rules, cut and bridle federal spending, implement a congressional stock trade ban. So

you know, various members weighing in maybe on some of their concerns, Joe. And I would assume that we'll continue to hear some of these about what they expect out of this speaker. Yes, sure, you will. And that's an important one that you mentioned, by the way, not by accident, because that is a member of the Freedom Caucus who has been on the fence with some of this, not so much about the Trump agenda. These are MAGA loyalists, but they are not always loyalists.

in favor of the way that Mike Johnson or before him, Kevin McCarthy has worked with Democrats, continuing resolutions, omnibus bills. They want regular order and they want steep spending cuts. And by the way, I've mentioned Elon Musk a couple of times. Right before this vote, Mike Johnson went on X and put quite a missive and said, as speaker, I commit to do the following. There were three items. The very first one was

was to commit to working with Doge and to enact the spending cut recommendations that come from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. It may have helped him win the gavel today. All right, Joe, do not go anywhere because we need you at this hour, no doubt about that. We do have somebody up there on Capitol Hill, our own Tyler Kendall. She's Bloomberg News reporter.

Tyler, what I am interested in what you are picking up in terms of mood and maybe what was going on behind the scenes when Mike Johnson didn't initially get that vote and had to do some work behind the scenes.

Yeah, hey Carol, it was fast moving up here on Capitol Hill and just to give you a little bit of color of what's happening up here. The Hill is absolutely packed both with members but also their families as they come to witness the new member class be sworn in. So there is high energy here in the rotunda. I can tell you that I was sticking out House Speaker Mike Johnson's office earlier today.

before the vote where he told reporters that he would not engage in what he called a quid pro quo to get any votes over the finish line. So that's gonna be the next big question here as Joe was talking about what were those backroom deals that may have been reached in order to ultimately get him to that magic number of 218. - As Joe mentioned, the challenging part comes now, Tyler. What does Mike Johnson have to do to be able to actually be effective as House Speaker with such a slight majority?

Right. So I had reporting this morning that I had spoken to a congressional aide who told me that they ultimately thought that this was going to come down to potential spending cuts, some sort of deal around that. Since when you looked at the members who were voicing concerns with Johnson, they were the same members who had previously voiced concerns when it comes to potentially Donald Trump's agenda and what that means for the fiscal outlook for the country, particularly anticipated

tax cuts. So I think that's going to see something that we really see prioritized in this next Congress, particularly with Speaker Johnson. Joe had also mentioned this, but right before he went on the floor, he put out what he was calling his list of commitments to his conference. And they really had to deal with this idea of fiscal responsibility, such as working with Doge and pointing independent experts that will release a report to the public, but also urging his committees that they have to take what he called

quote aggressive action when it came to reviewing their appropriations because he are expecting a busy year particularly with uh... president-elect trumps new agenda and it's going to include spending and it's going to go tax cuts this was just a little bit of a preview for some of the criticism and thorns in the side of speaker johnson that we might expect to tell i've got to say i've been watching and monitoring to see if uh... the president-elect has made any comments on truth social and just kinda watching

to see if he makes any comments. What, if anything, did you hear about behind the scenes of any involvement of the president-elect in this process, especially when it seemed like it was a little bit touch and go here at the end?

Well, I have to say there was actually an audible gasp here in the rotunda when Chip Roy ended up going for President-elect Trump. We know that Chip Roy had been one of those holdouts and he had previously sparred with President-elect Trump. If you'll recall, during that spending debate last month when Trump had urged Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, he threatened Roy with a primary challenge. Roy stood up and said that he was not going to end up

voting for that. So it was interesting to hear that when President-elect Trump threw his weight behind Johnson, he offered to personally call members, and that included Trip Roy. So we are, and on the first round, of course, Trip Roy ended up going for Mike Johnson. So it does appear that there was some sort of sway there. And we are also told that allies of Trump on the Hill ended up going into trying to push

and work with Speaker Mike Johnson when it came to persuading some of these House Freedom Caucus members. But ultimately important to remember that on that first round vote, Chip Roy and also the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris, both voted in favor of Johnson. Tyler Kendall, Bloomberg News reporter, joining us live from Capitol Hill. Thanks so much for that. I do want to go back to Joe Matthew standing by in our Washington, D.C. Bureau co-host of Bloomberg Balance of Power. Excuse me, Joe. So many shows.

out there. I want to go back to what you said about DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency and the commitment on the Department of Government Efficiency from the elected Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

And hear a little bit about your view on how this could be easier said than done, given how much the U.S. government spends on Social Security, Medicare, national defense, health, even net interest. I mean, that's that's the majority of the budget right there. How does the speaker enact the recommendations from Doge?

It's a great question, and I'll preface my answer by saying that this DOJ, the D for department, is not actually a government department, right? This is kind of a blue ribbon panel, if you will, not unlike other committees that have been put together before. So we've been trying to determine where's the connective tissue here between the DOJ and the actual lawmaking when it comes to writing legislation or crafting budgets, right?

He wrote in his post on X, I commit to create a working group comprised of independent experts, not corrupted by lobbyists and special interests, to work with Doge and our committees on implementing recommended government and spending reforms to protect the American taxpayer. There's no guarantee there that that actually happens, though, and we don't exactly know yet what the Doge plans to do in terms of

cutting spending. We've heard Elon Musk suggest cutting $2 trillion, but I think to your point, Tim, they'd have to probably crack into entitlements to find that kind of money. They would have to slash defense spending, neither of which Donald Trump wants to do. Yeah, I've heard that called the third rail of politics. People don't necessarily want to touch that. Joe. All right, Joe, thanks so much. You said that right. Yeah, Joe, thanks so much. We're going to let you go. You got a lot of work to do. That's Bloomberg's Joe Matthew down there in Washington, D.C.

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I'm grateful for this nomination. I'm grateful for this election, for the confidence this chamber has placed in me. It is the great honor of my life to serve this body with all of you. Speaker Johnson laying out the Republican agenda, the priorities, a return to, in his words,

to common sense after winning reelection as house speaker, overcoming resistance from a small but pivotal group of conservative hardliners after a flurry of last minute talks, something we were watching happen in real time, uh, from the house floor. And also, uh,

He did have the help of a critical endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump, who has come out, Tim, on Truth Social, offering up his congratulations to Speaker Mike Johnson for receiving, in the President-elect's words, an unprecedented vote of confidence in Congress. He says Mike will be a great speaker and our country will be the beneficiary. Yeah. So,

It wasn't just Mike Johnson who we heard from. We also heard from Hakeem Jeffries a little earlier. Absolutely. Who said it is 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 work hard to find bipartisan common with our Republican colleagues in the incoming administration on any issue whenever necessary.

and wherever possible. Someone who will be following what kind of common ground they ultimately find is Bloomberg News politics editor Laura Davis. And she's been sitting by listening to all of the happenings on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. She's there in our Bloomberg News D.C. bureau. Laura,

You do wonder, okay, ultimately after listening to the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, followed by the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, their agendas, their priorities, they certainly do not align. So you do wonder about the common ground that they will find moving forward.

Yeah, these speeches are sort of the first day of school speeches. You know, everyone's back. You know, they won reelection back after the holidays and feeling optimistic and, you know, joyful. A lot of those feelings subside, you know, really within just days or even hours. You know, Republicans have full control. They do not have to negotiate with Democrats for much of anything. They're able to use these processes where they can fast track bills through Congress.

So it's unlikely that we're gonna see much bipartisan cooperation, despite some of both what Hakeem Jeffries says, as well as Mike Johnson sort of alluding to working together. Really, you know, Democrats' job in this is to sort of do whatever they can do to delay and try to, you know, sow division among Republicans. Mike Johnson's job is to keep his Republican Party

Together, there are some divisions in that party, things that Democrats could exploit. He has a narrow, narrow majority, even narrower than he did last Congress. So this is going to be the big challenge going forward. You also have, you know, Republicans in the Senate and Republicans in the House not on the same page. In the Senate, we heard John Thune say earlier that he wants to move first with an immigration bill. In the House, they were talking more about doing taxes first. So there's a lot of ideas and, you know, only a limited sort of pathway to get some of these legislative priorities.

What does the president elect want Congress to do? This is a good question. He has not weighed in. Some of his aides have really pushed for immigration to be that first priority and really leaned on John Thune in the Senate to make that path forward. What we've heard from folks in the House has said, look, you know, every time we've tried to do multiple things, you know, they sort of in a moment of sort of shocking self-recognition.

We can't do that. You know, we saw in Trump's first term, they tried to do with a health care bill that failed and they ultimately moved on to taxes. Some Republicans are saying, look, let's get taxes done. We have a year end deadline. If we don't act, if we don't get a bill passed, then taxes will go up. We will see sort of Trump's first term signature legislative achievement go away. So there's a hard push there to really make sure that taxes get the

priority and they aren't waylaid by other things. You know, Congress has been bedeviled by an immigration package for decades. So I think there's some concern that, you know, that even though they have Republicans all in control, that that still is not an easy thing to get across the finish line. We've all grown a little bit older watching and waiting in terms of immigration. Laura, thank you so much. So appreciate your patience and listening along and giving us some great commentary there. Bloomberg News Politics Editor Laura Davison. This podcast is supported by BetterHelp.

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