For a couple of hours Friday afternoon, it seemed like Mike Johnson’s speakership was in grave danger.
Although Johnson had convinced several conservative holdouts to back his bid, Freedom Caucus members Reps. Ralph Norman and Keith Self joined Rep. Thomas Massie to deny Johnson the gavel — and about a half dozen other Freedom Caucus members signaled they may be a problem on subsequent ballots, after initially not voting when it was their turn.
And then Donald Trump called.
Or, rather, Rep. Nancy Mace called Trump from the Republican cloakroom, according to a source with knowledge of the interaction.
The president-elect, who told members he was in the middle of a round of golf, first spoke to Norman just off the House floor. Norman said Trump told him that, with a GOP trifecta in Washington, they had a real “opportunity” to push the party’s priorities.
Norman said he agreed with the argument. “But I’m just hoping Mike has got the oomph to pull it across,” he told reporters.
The South Carolina Republican said his conversation with the incoming president went “very well.” He said Trump impressed on him that Johnson was the only Republican who could carry out his agenda. And when their conversation ended, Norman and Mace took the phone to another room where Self was posted up.
They placed the phone on speaker so everyone in the room — which included Johnson, Norman, Self, Mace, Rep. Kat Cammack and Johnson’s senior adviser, Hogan Gidley — could hear, the source said.
Trump didn’t threaten Norman or Self. Instead, he reiterated that Johnson needed to be elected and emphasized the “historic nature of the election” and how Republicans should show unity behind the speaker. And, according to Norman, the president-elect said, “‘Mike is the only one that’s got the likability factor to be elected speaker.’”
It’s an argument Norman and Self have surely heard multiple times from the speaker and his allies. Johnson’s camp publicly and privately pitched that he was the only candidate positioned to win, contending that a drawn-out fight would only distract from Trump’s return to Washington.
But for Norman and Self, hearing the argument from Trump was different.
Fortunately for Johnson, Republicans hadn’t called the vote.“We made a point of stashing the tellers off the floor so the vote stayed open,” another source with knowledge of the whip efforts told NOTUS.
Norman and Self ended up changing their votes, shaking Johnson’s hand as they delivered him the gavel. In the end, in the first test of Trump’s influence with the new House GOP, the president-elect passed with 99.5% accuracy.
It’s a precedent that Republican lawmakers told NOTUS on Friday appears destined to repeat itself in the 119th Congress. In fact, if Johnson can stay on Trump’s good side, the president’s active participation in House politics might be the key ingredient to keeping hard-liners at bay.
With a paper-thin majority, where Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote to pass laws without Democratic support, Trump’s unique power of persuasion with GOP lawmakers may be essential.
Norman even said he told Trump he is personally “going to have to help us push over the agenda.”
“It’s going to take President Trump and his personality,” Norman told reporters.
If that’s all it takes, Republicans would be lucky. But it may also be the clearest path to governing: Put forward a Republican plan, accept the chaos and resistance from GOP lawmakers, and then count on Trump to push the plan over the edge.
Even before Trump’s phone conversations with Norman and Self, his influence over House Republicans was apparent. Although conservatives spent 15 months publicly airing grievances about Johnson’s leadership style, procedural strategy and policy positions — particularly his support for Ukraine aid — all but one GOP critic folded.
After a protracted battle over a short-term spending bill last month — during which Elon Musk and Trump torpedoed a Johnson-approved deal with Democrats — frustration with Johnson’s speakership reached a fever pitch. At the time, there was just a single thing, one Republican told NOTUS, that could allow Johnson to keep his job.
“The only thing that saves him at this point is if Donald Trump steps in and endorses him,” this member said.
And once Trump endorsed Johnson on Monday, all but Massie — who’s more prone to being the lone “no” vote than any other member of Congress — fell in line.
In interviews with NOTUS, as well as a post-speaker election letter, the reasoning of the roughly dozen holdouts was consistent. Despite their frustration with Johnson, keeping him as speaker was the surest way to execute Trump’s sweeping agenda.
“The president just won a big election, and so I think, you know, he, broadly speaking, deserves to kind of get the folks that he wants to have in place,” said Rep. Chip Roy, who Trump targeted with a primary threat last month.
Rep. Byron Donalds — who was floated as an alternative speaker candidate — said that Trump’s last-minute rallying was “very critical” to getting Johnson through.
“President Trump’s view, in my opinion, is we have a mission to accomplish, and we just can’t afford to lose the votes,” Donalds said. “And so I think that was really, really important for Speaker Johnson, and now we work.”
While a number of important conversations ultimately swayed the holdouts — one source pointed out that Rep. Dusty Johnson was “uniquely well-spoken” and critical in convincing Freedom Caucus holdouts to back Johnson — Trump’s voice was undoubtedly the most important. And now that Trump has helped install his preferred speaker, he has major ambitions for his legislative agenda next term.
At the top of the list is renewing his tax plan implemented in his first term, tightening restrictions at the southern border and renegotiating the debt ceiling — all in the first months he holds office.
“Every president wants to see their agenda passed,” Rep. Chuck Edwards told NOTUS. “And where President Trump sees resistance, he’ll work to try to convince folks by whatever means he feels that he might have to exercise influence.”
Not only are Republicans anticipating Trump’s influence. Rep. Ben Cline told NOTUS he expects more members will ask for it directly.
“His involvement in our policy debates will be welcomed and solicited,” he said.
Johnson, too, seems to understand that Trump will be a power broker next term, calling his voice a “big one.”
“President Trump is arguably the most powerful president, certainly of the modern era, maybe, in all of American history,” he said.
Still, even with Trump’s backup, conservatives have other levers to exert their influence over the House. Just hours after Johnson was elected, the threat of an ouster was already bubbling in conversations among the holdouts. Conservatives have long dangled using the motion to vacate to remove Johnson as they did with Kevin McCarthy, but they now face a nine-vote threshold.
Roy said he and others briefly withheld their votes for Johnson as a way of “making clear to the conference that there’s a bloc of folks who are going to want to make sure that we actually deliver.”
When NOTUS asked if a motion to vacate was brought up as a threat to Johnson, Roy said they didn’t talk about that, but immediately suggested they have the numbers to meet the threshold.
“It is very clear: There were 11 of us on a letter, there were nine that withheld their vote for a little bit,” Roy said. “Things need to change, and I don’t think there’s a lot of wiggle room in that change.”
Roy isn’t alone.
“Nobody wants to have a sword over their head, but we have a motion to vacate for a reason,” Rep. Andy Ogles said. “He’s been given a job, he’s got to go do that job.”
Meanwhile, moderates are appealing to an even higher power than Trump to get conservatives on board with the party’s agenda.
“God’s got to change some hearts,” Rep. Don Bacon told NOTUS.
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Riley Rogerson, Reese Gorman and Oriana González are reporters at NOTUS. Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Mark Alfred and Helen Huiskes, who are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows, contributed to this report.