Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may have won several rounds in the congressional arena, but it’s only thanks to the knockouts dealt by President Donald Trump.
Since Johnson took the speaker’s gavel in the fall of 2023, he has had to deal with razor-thin majorities and pushback from his right flank. The level of party infighting that threatened to delay the GOP’s agenda often caused Trump to step in and save the day, causing both Democrats and Republicans to wonder who really is in the speaker’s chair.
Now, with a GOP trifecta, Republicans are working overtime to implement as much of Trump’s agenda as soon as possible. But that feat has proven difficult for GOP leadership, particularly in the House and when it comes to spending.
Most recently, fiscal conservatives who have never voted for a short-term spending bill, or continuing resolution, ended up helping push the legislation over the finish line — but not because of Johnson or promises from leadership.
“I’ve been let down by politicians again and again, but Trump has not let me down,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) told the Washington Examiner. “When he, you know, when he says that he’s going to make the cuts necessary, is going to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse — I don’t believe Congress has the political courage to kind of thing.”
Burlison was among the Freedom Caucus members who, for the first time in a long time, voted for the continuing resolution last week. Under Johnson’s leadership, there have been five continuing resolutions, which, in the past, have irritated hard-liners and a few times led to motions to vacate the speaker.
Last week, however, hard-liners got behind the CR after Trump met with a group of HFC members at the Oval Office and made personal calls to holdouts.
One Freedom Caucus member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told the Washington Examiner that the caucus has come to the conclusion that there’s “no real reason to talk to Johnson, unless you want to send a message to Trump.”
The lawmaker said the conversations between the caucus, Johnson, and other leadership members were “not as impacting” as a phone call or face-to-face meeting with the president.
Other Republicans noted that Trump and Vice President JD Vance were instrumental in getting the CR across the finish line.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), another holdout on the CR, said Trump “absolutely” eased his conscience more than leadership on areas of spending with which he disagreed.
“He’s the one that’s going to be making — he’s the biggest dog in the pound,” Burchett told the Washington Examiner.
This is not the first time Trump has needed to step in and help Johnson push key policy over the finish line. He made calls to holdouts during the budget resolution, which unlocks reconciliation to bypass Senate procedures and quickly make policies law, that ultimately allowed Johnson to bring the measure he pulled off the floor back up for a successful vote.
The president has also caused Johnson’s plans to sink. In December, a 1,000-page spending bill hit a dead end after Trump and Vance came out against it. He threatened to primary Republicans who voted for it — a warning he recently drudged up against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the sole Republican “no” vote on last week’s CR. In September last year, Trump called on all Republicans to reject a government funding plan that led to failed votes on the House floor.
Trump has also saved Johnson’s job as speaker on numerous occasions, after hard-liners upset with various legislative stances threatened or filed motions to vacate the chair. Some Democrats at the time blasted Republicans for cow-towing to Trump as a de-facto speaker while he was still a presidential candidate.
“The speaker might as well just go home. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what role he serves anymore,” Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-MA) told the Washington Examiner. “When Trump says ‘jump,’ they ask ‘how high?’”
McGovern accused Johnson of ceding the “powers and prerogatives of the Congress to the executive.”
“It’s really kind of sad but again, I don’t know, what does he do all day? Because he’s certainly not leading the House of Representatives. He just doing whatever they tell him to do,” McGovern added, referring to Trump and Elon Musk.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) told the Washington Examiner she thinks Johnson and most of the GOP conference are so afraid of Trump that it has gotten in the way of bipartisan negotiations.
“They just get afraid of being tweeted at, really. Like, it literally has come down to that,” Balint said. “And so if, if he weren’t in the picture, I do think that there’s a possibility to get to a short-term CR that was actually clean.”
“It’s not really Johnson, it’s not really the chairs of the appropriate committees, right? It’s always Trump, who only has sort of like a top line idea of what it is that he wants,” Balint added about the path Republicans took to get to the CR. “He doesn’t know any about the details. He’s doesn’t know who’s gonna get hurt in all of this.”
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Burlison said multiple times that he only voted for the CR because of Trump — and to him, that sends a strong message.
“We’re not passing appropriations bills right now. We need to be doing that. If we’re actually going to do the job of Congress — what we did, this, today, is was demonstrating that Congress is a failure and that we need Trump to save us.”
