Johnson has Trump’s ‘Complete’ and ‘Total Endorsement’ for Speaker
Johnson can only lose two Republican votes.
Speaker Mike Johnson faces a rebellion when the House returns in a few days and votes for speakership on January 3rd. We know that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) won’t vote for Johnson as Speaker of the House.
President-elect Donald Trump, though, threw his support behind the beleaguered speaker.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.”
The Republicans have a slim majority. Johnson can only lose two Republican votes.
Massie has posted on X:
I will vote for someone other than Mike Johnson. I’m not persuaded by the “hurry up and elect him so we can certify the election on J6” argument. A weak legislative branch, beholden to the swamp, will not be able to achieve the mandate voters gave Trump and Congress in November. pic.twitter.com/vrD3l45XDX
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 27, 2024
Mike Johnson is the next Paul Ryan.
On January 3rd, 2025, I won’t be voting for Mike Johnson.
I hope my colleague will join me because history will not give America another “do-over.”
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 30, 2024
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) published a list of demands on Monday morning that Johnson must commit to in order to earn her vote:
“Congress has abandoned its constitutional duty to the American people to properly oversee the spending of their hard-earned money paid as taxes. Our next speaker must show courageous leadership to get our country back on track before this “Titanic” strikes an iceberg at any moment. Severe fiscal calamities often lead to unrest and more government control. If we are serious about governing, our next SPEAKER must COMMIT PUBLICLY to create at least temporary structures in the House for: 1) authorizations; 2) reconciliation offset policies, and 3) spending audits. We also need to engage competent, unbiased “non-swamp” professionals to help us to at least start getting us gradually out of this serious fiscal mess. The current STRUCTURES, with their perverse incentives, have not been working for decades and will not suddenly start working. We must have a vision and a concrete PLAN to deliver on President Trump’s agenda for the American people, which I have not seen from our current speaker despite countless discussions and public promises. The fate of our Republic is at stake and Congress, the ARTICLE 1 BRANCH, with its supreme powers of creating laws and managing our nation’s finances, must start fulfilling its CONSTITUTIONAL DUTIES – not selling out our Republic at the expense of our children.”
This morning, Rep. Spartz released a statement on her speaker vote:
“It will take bold and decisive leadership to reverse this ‘Titanic’ from its catastrophic course and deliver on President Trump’s agenda. WE MUST HAVE A PLAN!”https://t.co/od78pfq0W4 pic.twitter.com/gm4WqvE9Dy
— Rep. Victoria Spartz (@RepSpartz) December 30, 2024
According to Politico, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has been asking around to determine if the Republicans could have other speakership nominees besides Johnson:
Rep. CHIP ROY (R-Texas) is conducting a temperature check to determine the viability of Rep. JIM JORDAN (R-Ohio) and other possible candidates if MIKE JOHNSON is unable to secure another term with the speaker’s gavel, our Olivia Beavers writes in.
Roy’s efforts include attempting to get a read on the roughly 20 House Republicans who opposed Jordan last year during the speakership race that ensued after the ouster of former Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the matter.
Such conversations come just days before the Friday floor vote that will determine if Johnson can secure a second term as speaker. It could be a bad sign for Johnson that Roy is trying to find a fallback option: To maintain the gavel, Johnson can’t risk losing the support of more than two House Republicans, and Rep. THOMAS MASSIE (R-Ky.) has already publicly announced his opposition. Roy himself was particularly critical of Johnson after the latest government spending bill passed ahead of the holidays.
Who knows what will happen on January 3. I bet we get a fiasco like we did over McCarthy. I don’t mind. It means the lawmakers won’t be signing and passing stupid bills.
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Comments
Johnson will not be the Speaker in the next session.
His participation in the CR bill debacle is damning.
He does not deserve to be. But, might Democrats decide that he is their best alternative and throw a few votes his way?
Apparently old age and treachery got to my speaker reconers in NJ, so your sole option is to replace him
Unite now. Bicker later.
.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Johnson is good, and this move by Trump establishes an unspoken “You hold that position by my good will. Don’t push it.” If push comes to shove, and the alternative is that frothing leftist loon for Democratic Speaker, I’m absolutely positive Massie will vote for Johnson. Same for Victoria. The points she is making are perfectly valid, and should be passed effortlessly in a fair House, and Johnson is the best option for that ‘fair’ qualifier. The everloving last thing we need as a country and as the new administration is to set off a flurry of backstabbing amongst supposed allies.
Audits are coming. Consequences will follow.
Ted Cruz provided a good explanation of this in his podcast “Verdict”.
His main point was that legislation in the House requires 218 votes in order to be accepted. With the Republicans holding a very thin majority, Johnson, or any other Speaker, is forced to make concessions to the Democrats if even a small handful of Republicans are against a given piece of legislation.
This is what happened in this case. The CR had a fair amount of opposition from Republicans, so Johnson was forced to accept various Democrat demands in order to gain sufficient Democrat support.
Johnson is not perfect, but any other Republican Speaker would face similar voting challenges. What Johnson needs to do better is pressure his Republican colleagues to support good legislation, perhaps through public speeches that will have voters reaching out to their respective representatives.
Giving away the farm shouldn’t be part of the consideration to get he votes though.
Agreed, and that’s why I noted the need to better push the Republicans via their constituents.
I mean it’s quite simple really. Stop making deals with Democrats whose interests serve only them and not Americas greater good.
The reason he had to go with Democrat support was because of all the democrats crap that had been added in to buy their support.
Had he just raised separate bills for everything then Democrats would have been forced in to taking a stand (either they stand with America on individual line items or they do not).
It really is time Democrats were made to be accountable.
This is where we need a ballsy Speaker.
I’d make no deals with Democrats. I’d put everything up separated for a vote and let the chips fall where they fall. If something fails I’d hammer every Republican who voted against me by simply going all over the media and pointing out how a representative sunk a bill. Let them explain their votes.
I voted for Trump three times, and was an enthusiastic supporter. My daughter even more so. She lost friends over it. Now I’m starting to have buyer’s regret. His support of the H-1B program is a real turn off, especially when he says he has “always been in favor,” a provable falsehood. Reminds me of “Oceania was always at war with Eastasia.” He might be confusing H-1B with H-2B. His embrace of Musk and Ramaswamy is even worse. They have directly insulted Americans, and appear to prefer Indians over Americans.
I would never ever have considered voting for any creature from the Democratic Party which I regard as a criminal syndicate run by idiots. So i could just stop voting, or claim my birthright citizenship in Israel. I’m prepared for more disappointments. I suspect we have been scammed.
Go to Israel and tell us how things go with Democrats in power 😂😂
Try thinking for yourself for a change, you might be pleasantly surprised.
You don’t know much about Israel which is why you resort to personal insults.
Israel is more left than the US on everything but foreign policy.
Oden, don’t give up on Trump so fast. With respect to H1-B visas, let Trump mull about it. There are reasons to keep it and reasons no to. Give him a chance to think about it. With respect to Mike Johnson, let me say, he has been a major disappointment as far as I’m concerned. Nonetheless, given the very narrow Republican majority in the House, it would be better to go with John’s at this juncture than have a fight about a new Speaker. Also, the House will be unable to certify the election on Jan. 6th with no Speaker.
There are no good reasons to keep the H-1B program. This whole issue has been studied and none of the assumptions hold. For example, Norm Matloff reports that the whole idea that foreign students are the “best and brightest” does not hold. See
https://www.epi.org/publication/bp356-foreign-students-best-brightest-immigration-policy/
Matloff is well qualified to write on this subject as professor of computer science at UC Davis. He was also a professor of statistics and an author of books on R, which has become the lingua franca of academic and research statistics. He also wrote a 1999 law review article which treats the whole subject comprehensively.
In short there is no shortage or qualified American engineers, computer scientists and programers. The H-1Bs from India are at best mediocre both as students and workers. What would you expect from a country with an average IQ of 76? I know there are exceptions, but they are not typical and Matloff presents data to back this up. He has also taught Indian students as I have, and in my opinion, on the whole, they are terrible. Let’s not confuse the macro with the micro. Policy is made at the macro. Besides we have a special visa for the truly exceptional.
This whole issue is about cheap labor and a captured workforce. Industry lobbies Congress and Congress gives. There is also massive cheating. In India one can buy a degree and an undergraduate degree is all you need to get into the H-1B visa program.
Industry does not care about the damage done to Americans. All they care about is cheap. As Thomas Jefferson famously said: “Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” True in his time and true now.
The whole program needs to be abolished. I don’t appreciate insults from the likes of Musk and Ramaswamy. As industrialist they want cheap too. Musk has even played the race card just like the Democrats. These guys need to go and if Trump keeps them he risks losing his MAGA base.
The dust up over visa program is manufactured. Several things can be true at the same time:
1. Lack of sufficient US workforce with skill set
2. ED system that fails to produce sufficient workforce with the skill.sets
3. A tech industry, among others, that grew complacent and accustomed to rely upon paying lower wages to imported workers via visa programs
4. Lack of incentive (low wages for drudge work) for US born workers to invest to study/train for low paid work.
The solutions can be multifaceted as well.
1. Require companies to demonstrate actual need for imported foreign workers by proving LACK of available workforce with the skills.
2. Require companies to demonstrate they tried to hire US workers with skill sets at higher wages and incentives to relocate.
3. Require all Visa granted to use OJT (on the job training) for 1/3 of the positions reserved for US workers.
4. Align companies incentives by non renewal of visa requests over time as more US workers are trained and hired.
The primary issue is not a lack of workers but lack of workers willing to do these jobs for low wages. Any lack of skill set is a consequence of this b/c folks here have no incentive to invest in study/training. Over a short period of years the need for large numbers of imported foreign workers goes away b/c wages are increased for drudge work, US workers have been trained and are available for hire and companies will be required to hire US workers first before visa are granted.
Your assumptions do not hold. See my prior post. The solution: cancel the whole program. Not needed and pernicious. Make industry pay a decent wage. If we had a shortage of tech workers wages would be increasing instead of flat.
I suspect there is an actual shortage of workers with the skill sets to perform the drudge work at tech and other industries. I agree that the shortage is primarily due to low industry wages/compensation and stated as much above. Increase the pay and folks will do the work no matter how arduous; see oilfield workers among many other examples.
That said, the decades of low industry pay and imported foreign workers combined to basically eliminate interest in these jobs for many students. Fewer students means fewer native born with the skill sets at present. Will take a little time and investment to train up the number of workers required but the industries requesting visa workers should be footing a large share of the training bill with OJT requirements in return for granting visas…to include prior year authorization.
Not sure what you refer to by ‘make industry pay a decent wage’. Does that mean the govt directly setting private sector compensation above min wage? Seems bad to me.
Instead lets simply have a short period of transition as I described which requires the companies requesting visa workers to show there ain’t any US Workers available. Make them hold job fairs and conduct hiring attempts to demonstrate actual NEED for a visa worker v a preference for a visa worker, who are IMO, little better than modern indentured servants.
The Gov’t should be on these companies requesting visa workers like ‘white on rice’ at every step to ensure they are in legitimate need of importing a foreign worker. In addition require them to start training up native US workers to fill these jobs with on the job training.
Buyer’s remorse already? You know he doesn’t take office for another 3 weeks, right? You also know he has a tendency to use hyperbole to get his points across (and to poke at his detractors), right?
You say you have been enthusiastically supporting him through 3 elections, and you have seen how he conducted himself through one term as POTUS already. Weird that you are willing to declare that he has “scammed” you/us at this point.
Most of the comments here are about backbone or balls neither of which Johnson has but the reality is that Trump knows that if these morons get into another catfight as they did over McCarthy, his agenda will never fly. He has to hit the ground running on day one and that will never happen if he endorses anyone else.
The best way forward is clean small single purpose bills as opposed to the omnibus grift.
“It means the lawmakers won’t be signing and passing stupid bills.”
It also means there won’t BE a Day 1 Deportation because Trump won’t be President to authorize it. Are you good with THAT TOO?
Start calling Sen Grassley, who is likely to be Senate President Pro Tem, and thus ‘acting President’ to let your voice on Day 1 deportation be known and heard.