President-elect Donald Trump threw his support behind House Speaker Mike Johnson in a meeting with the House GOP that focused more on Republicans’ victories on Election Day than the road ahead.
Mr. Trump’s support of Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has likely killed any last-minute rebellion against the speaker and set up a smoother pathway in his bid for his first full term as speaker in the new Congress.
“He’s a good guy,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m with him all the way.”
House GOP rebels were mulling a last-minute challenge to Mr. Johnson’s bid for a full term as speaker in the new Congress, sending a loud message that the right flank of the party wants to exert its power when Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.
Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, said he planned to back Mr. Johnson because of Mr. Trump’s support.
“Everybody has a right to their own opinion, but, you know, I’m gonna follow the lead of the president,” he told The Washington Times.
SEE ALSO: Speaker Johnson could face challenger amid simmering GOP discontent
Republicans are set to vote to fill the leadership positions Wednesday afternoon, with many of the same lawmakers expected to return to their roles.
Mr. Johnson has emphasized his role in retaining the GOP’s majority in the House as a chief argument for his keeping the gavel. In the Republicans’ closed-door meeting, he also credited Mr. Trump with carrying candidates across the finish line.
“They used to call Bill Clinton the comeback kid,” Mr. Johnson said. “This is the comeback king. He is the king.”
Mr. Trump spent much of his meeting lauding the GOP’s big election night and likely trifecta in Washington, congratulating members who won in tough races and showering with praise tech billionaire Elon Musk and his newly appointed Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, who were both in attendance.
Lawmakers leaving the closed-door meeting said Mr. Trump was “relaxed and funny,” and joked that he wanted to appoint more members from the House GOP to his administration, something that Republican leadership fears would whittle away a likely narrow majority in the new Congress.
But there was little discussion of policy, however, and no mention of what he would like to see Republicans do in the looming spending fight.
“It wasn’t like he got into, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this.’ It was like, ‘We’re going to move fast, hang together, be a team,’ you know, and I think much more kind of a rah-rah address, which is about what I expected,” Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said. “It’s not the place to lay out a policy agenda, and he certainly didn’t do that.”
In order to move quickly on a Trump-dominated agenda, Republicans will need to win the majority in the House, which they are likely to do. The GOP has so far won 216 seats, two shy of clinching the majority, while Democrats control 207. There are still a dozen races that have not been called.
Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, sporting a Trump tie and the president-elect’s golden Trump sneakers, told reporters that now Republicans have a mission to fulfill Mr. Trump’s objectives and goals, “whatever that is.”
“We need to embrace that, all of it, every single word in his mission statement we need to embrace,” Mr. Nehls said. “That means for leadership, if Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads, that’s it.”
• CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Rep. Andy Ogles was eyeing a challenge to Speaker Mike Johnson.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.