Mike Johnson's hell-in-waiting if he keeps the speaker gavel in 2025
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House Speaker Mike Johnson is fighting for his job this week. Today's setback gives him a sense for how difficult — and lonely — it will be if he wins.
- Read the room: Johnson's rank-and-file aren't taking his Plan A seriously ... his top members are pointing fingers over who's to blame ... worst of all, the former president reserves the right to blindside him.
Why it matters: Those dynamics will only increase if Donald Trump wins back the presidency and Republicans maintain their House majority.
- Johnson knows he can't pass a funding bill with partisan policy positions.
- But he also knows he has to get caught trying.
Zoom in: The speaker is back in the same caretaker's hot seat he occupied before Democrats saved his job over aid for Ukraine.
- Johnson couldn't even muscle through his Plan A — a six-month spending stopgap to avoid a government shutdown that would be paired with legislation to require proof of citizenship to register to vote — this week before Trump blindsided him.
- Johnson told us he and Trump are on the same page. It's hard to read the former president's post and agree.
Tensions are mounting among Johnson's top deputies, with some fingers pointing at House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), we have learned.
- GOP lawmakers privately say there's a pattern here: "This seems like a long line of tough bills that Emmer hasn't whipped," a top House GOP lawmaker told us.
- "Emmer is failing as whip with multiple bills collapsing on the House floor. The whip operation is non-existent at this point," a senior GOP lawmaker told us.
The other side: "It's bullshit to blame Tom," a top House Republican told us.
- Johnson never had the votes to pass the stopgap bill — and even if Emmer manages to twist the arms of public "no" votes, it's dead-on-arrival in the Senate.
- "Emmer and Guy [Reschenthaler] are the only folks who have whipped me … They make a pretty compelling argument for it," Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told us.
Reality check: Johnson's Plan A has been a farce from the start.
- Now Johnson's own members are waiting on it to fail so he can turn to a Plan B he insists doesn't exist.
🔮 House Republicans expect to see Plan B as a six-month stopgap, without the SAVE Act.
- When that fails, they expect to inevitably cave to the Senate on a deal that pushes negotiations into the lame duck.
