President-elect Donald Trump appears to have deteriorating confidence in House Speaker Mike Johnson to lead the Republican conference in the next cycle.
Trump holds a large sway among House Republicans, who could push Johnson out of the Speakership if Trump gives the signal.
Trump has not yet abandoned Johnson, although he began on Thursday to move against him by not committing to Johnson remaining Speaker.
“We’ll see,” Trump told NBC News’s Garrett Haake about his confidence in Johnson.
“What they had yesterday was unacceptable. … In many ways it was unacceptable. It’s a Democrat trap,” Trump added about the spending measure packed full of pork.
Trump provided a path for Johnson to save his job. The roadmap appears to set a series of reasonable demands regarding the spending package. Achieving Trump’s requests, however, might be difficult in the context of a potential government shutdown before Christmas, thus essentially torpedoing Johnson’s position.
Johnson will “easily remain speaker” if he “acts decisively and tough” and eliminates “all of the traps being set by Democrats” in the spending package, Trump told Fox News’s Brooke Singman.
Mutiny is building among Republicans to oust Johnson. With a small incoming Republican House majority, Johnson can only lose one Republican vote to remain Speaker in early January. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has already said he will not vote for Johnson.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
