A 'constituency of one': How Trump motivated Johnson’s spending strategy

Mike Johnson won 341 votes for his final stopgap spending plan Wednesday evening, but his strategy ultimately had an audience of just one person: Donald Trump.

After nearly a year of leading the House GOP, the speaker’s fate is inextricably tied to the former president. If the GOP nominee wins the presidency and Republicans hold onto the House majority, Johnson stands a much stronger chance at keeping the gavel if he has Trump’s blessing.

That made Johnson's circuitous, halting route toward passing legislation to avoid a government shutdown over the past two weeks — a journey that included several false starts and public failures — a painstaking exercise in Trump management, some House Republicans say.

The Louisiana conservative worked to assuage Trump throughout the spending battle, initially embracing a plan with a conservative voting bill attached to it, despite it having no chance at clearing Congress.

Johnson met with Trump in person multiple times over the past month, including once just hours after a second assassination attempt against Trump in Florida. And leadership allies continuously checked in with the former president — a sustained outreach effort that started well before the speaker ultimately shifted gears and put forward a bipartisan proposal to avert a shutdown.

While some in the party privately knocked Johnson’s initial doomed bill as an embarrassing charade, other Republicans viewed it as a necessary political dance to keep Trump satisfied. If he hadn’t gone that route, some GOP lawmakers worried, a frustrated Trump would have undermined Johnson at a critical moment with the House GOP’s right flank and increased the odds of a shutdown. Johnson subsequently jettisoned the immigrant voting language, which would have required proof of citizenship to vote.

Trump last week reiterated on Truth Social that Republicans should reject a spending bill without the voting legislation. But one Trump ally in the House, granted anonymity to talk about private discussions, said that Johnson personally urged the former president not to publicly speak out against the final bipartisan bill.

That legislation, which cleared Congress Wednesday night, funds the government until Dec. 20 and doesn’t include the Trump-pushed voting proposal. The former president ended up staying quiet through the vote, at least publicly.

There are early signs that Johnson’s efforts to keep Trump happy are paying off, for now. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), for example, was adamant just months ago when he co-lead a May ouster attempt that Johnson couldn’t win the gavel again.

Now, he says it “depends on what Trump does.”

“Maybe Trump can drag him across the finish line, but that’s probably what it would take,” he added.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), a Freedom Caucus member who also helped advance the ouster push against Johnson earlier this year, emphasized that Trump’s endorsement of a speaker — assuming he wins the presidential race — will majorly influence Crane’s leadership vote. If Trump does back Johnson, he remarked that he would “consider” backing the current speaker.

That view is widely shared among conservatives, who have frequently and vocally criticized Johnson but are still highly deferential to Trump.

One member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus put the Trump effect bluntly: Johnson has a “constituency of one.”

Another conservative, asked about Johnson’s chances of keeping the gavel, specifically pointed to the speaker’s relationship with the former president as one reason he could hold on, noting that the Louisianan “understands and works well with President Trump.”

Perhaps illustrating that relationship, Trump’s repeated public calls to shut down the government without a bill that prevents noncitizens from voting have quieted since Johnson officially unveiled his bipartisan plan on Sunday. Johnson has openly broken with Trump on that point, while also emphasizing that they are in constant contact, saying earlier this week that shutting down the government just weeks before the election would be “political malpractice.”

Still, Johnson’s deference to Trump hasn’t kept the former president totally quiet. Behind the scenes, Trump called some of the 14 Republicans who opposed Johnson’s initial plan of the six-month stopgap attached to the GOP’s voting bill, known as the SAVE Act. As Johnson plowed forward with the three-month clean bill, Trump used those calls, which were first reported by The Hill, to suggest that the GOP holdouts attach voting language to the bill, according to three people familiar with the outreach.

Trump was ultimately dissuaded from mounting a more aggressive push by GOP leadership, who argued that attaching the voting legislation would cause more opposition than support, these people said. And Johnson, asked about Trump’s calls to his holdouts, touted his own ongoing conversations with the former president.

“I've been talking with President Trump all day long and he understands exactly what's going on here,” Johnson said Wednesday, shortly before the government funding vote.

Ultimately, the short-term funding bill , known as a continuing resolution or a CR, passed the House without any add-ons, with 132 Republicans supporting it and 82 GOP members voting against it. That margin is a win for Johnson, as his right flank watched closely to see if he would be able to get a majority of their conference.

When asked about the conservative reaction, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Johnson had to navigate a difficult tightrope.

“I think the speaker really made a tough call to say, we’re going to let everybody have their say on that CR and on the next CR. If this one doesn’t pass — and it didn't pass — everybody knew there would be a next step. … So I don’t think anybody was surprised,” Scalise said.

Yet there are other signs of Trump’s influence in the spending debate: Some House Republicans privately said they wouldn’t support the bipartisan stopgap bill because it didn’t have Trump’s public blessing, according to a Republican with knowledge of these discussions. And conservatives have openly said one reason they oppose the three-month stopgap is because they don’t want to jam a potential President Trump with a higher spending deal.

Johnson hasn’t faced more ouster threats since one was defeated earlier this year, but several members of his right flank are refusing to discuss if they would vote for him again in January.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy , one of 11 Republicans who helped advance the ouster effort, sidestepped when asked if he would back Johnson in January, saying he’s “not going to address any of those issues now.” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), another of the 11, said Republicans were stuck in a “suboptimal pattern” on spending, but that he wasn’t focused on the speaker’s race.

Other Republicans, including those who opposed the effort to boot Johnson, said they are waiting to see the outcome of the election before they make up their minds. Republicans have little incentive to come out publicly against Johnson now, knowing it only puts a target on their backs if he ultimately runs and wins another speaker race.

But even if they’re not directly criticizing Johnson, the frustration among some was palpable.

“What I’m thinking about is how do we curb our spending? How do we not get to the point where we now join 28 other empires who fail because they can’t service their debts any longer?” first-term Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said in an interview with POLITICO. “This is why I don’t want to stay in Congress, because nothing is changing. It is a broken institution. I’ve never seen such dysfunction.”

He says he’s seriously weighing leaving Congress, but he’s waiting to see if an administration change fixes this frustration.

“I want to at least be given the opportunity to say, ‘You know what, it wasn’t Congress, it was just the administration.’ But if it is the other administration and nothing is changing in Congress and I know it’s just Congress alone at that point, yeah, I can’t. I think that way I’ve given it a fair assessment.”

Mills' office later sent a statement clarifying the congressman's position: "I hope that in my next term, with a new administration, we can finally bring fiscal responsibility back to Washington. I will work tirelessly to fight for the American people who shouldn’t have to bear the burden of reckless, irresponsible spending. It’s beyond time Congress works for the people."

Taking a victory lap after the vote, Johnson reiterated that he plans to be wielding the gavel come January.

“I intend to be the speaker in the new Congress,” Johnson said, adding that Republicans are preparing a “very aggressive agenda” for the start of 2025 and “I intend to lead this group.”

But some members still think the speaker has fierce critics who will oppose him in a speakership vote no matter what. Those include Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.) and Massie — three Republicans who signed onto the so-called motion to vacate resolution earlier this year.

And it’s not limited to those three. One House Republican, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said their position wouldn’t change even if Trump backed Johnson.

As this member put it: “I feel completely justified going back home and saying, ‘Why would I sign up for this again?’