Speaker Mike Johnson is bending to President-elect Donald Trump’s demands in his latest bid to avoid a government shutdown in less than 36 hours and help save his job. GOP lawmakers are skeptical he can pull it off.
There’s no final plan yet, as the Lousiana Republican continues to huddle in his office on Thursday with a rotating cross-section of his conference, including members of his leadership team, House Freedom Caucus lawmakers and others. The speaker is assessing various options and running them by Trump world to ensure he has the incoming president’s buy-in before moving forward on another plan, after Trump publicly trashed the spending bill Wednesday and suddenly demanded that lawmakers raise the debt ceiling as well.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who has been in and out of Johnson’s office all day, has told a swarm of reporters roughly two dozen times that the situation is “fluid.” By early afternoon he had switched his descriptive of the talks to “moving.” The head of the GOP’s campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), was asked if the House would vote on a spending plan Thursday and replied: “I guess we’ll find out.”
The scramble underscores Johnson’s reality, not just now but in the coming months: Nearly any plan he puts forward will spark grumbling, if not an outright rebellion, from his ranks. With a spending deal, he will almost certainly need to get Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown deadline Friday night, since some conservatives are unlikely to support the plan regardless. That problem came up repeatedly in a meeting of more mainstream GOP members on Thursday.
“It was mostly about frustration with one group, who’s gonna demand what’s in and out of this bill, and then still vote against it,” said one House Republican who was in the meeting, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Johnson also needs to keep Trump happy, and the incoming president is demanding that the speaker not cede to Democratic demands. A handful of members on the right flank are publicly calling for Johnson to just let funding lapse and allow a government shutdown before Christmas. Trump has also expressed he’s open to the idea.
But his last-minute demands are also sowing discontent with other lawmakers. One House GOP lawmaker was overheard by a POLITICO reporter complaining to another member about Trump’s last-minute demands.
“If [Trump] wants to do this … he needs to show up,” said the House Republican. “This is a deeply unserious party right now.”
Johnson can only afford to lose three Republicans on any partisan proposal he puts forward — a bar he’s been unable to clear on funding fights before. Some of his members are stating the obvious: Even if Republicans manage to pass it without Democratic help in the House, it will have to clear the Democratic-controlled Senate and get signed by President Joe Biden.
“If you don’t take pretty close to what we’ve got right now, I just don’t know how it gets through the Senate,” said Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), referring to Johnson’s initial three-month funding bill that dozens of House Republicans vowed to oppose.
Members have been given guidance that there could be votes on Thursday, though it’s not clear what funding plan they would be voting on.
A growing number of GOP members say they believe there will likely be multiple bills to deal with farm bill and additional assistance for farmers, disaster aid and the stopgap, given Trump’s demand to punt the debt limit fight, according to three Republicans. Adding to Johnson's predicament, farm district Republicans have remained firm in their demand that any stopgap plan includes a farm bill extension and additional assistance for struggling farmers.
The hurdles with raising the debt ceiling are two-fold. Democrats are against the idea and trying to pressure Johnson to stick to their original deal. Meanwhile, Trump’s push to raise — or completely eliminate — the debt limit doesn’t square with conservatives’ long-held demand for cuts to government funding and reining in spending.
“Republicans cannot raise the debt ceiling without massive spending cuts and significant structural reforms,” outgoing Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) wrote on X.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) repeatedly declined to comment as he left meetings in Johnson’s office on Thursday. But he hinted at his previous positions of opposing clean debt ceiling suspensions or hikes, telling reporters that “everybody knows how I feel about a debt ceiling increase.” And Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he could not support a short-term funding bill that included a clean debt hike or suspension.
Others shrugged off the concerns of raising the debt limit, arguing it hasn’t done much to rein in spending at all.
“It hasn't been very effective in dealing with constraining the debt,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “We knew we were going to have to address the debt limit at some point. President Trump just wants it done now, rather than on his watch. And I can understand why.”
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) told reporters after a meeting in Johnson’s office that abolishing the debt limit is “not part of the conversation.” But, she added, Trump has said “he wants to make sure that we are addressing the debt ceiling in addition to the continuing resolution and the spending priorities.”
“Still negotiating,” she added, saying that Republicans are having a “robust discussion.”
The lack of a clear path forward has prompted Republicans to start preparing for the unseemly idea of a shutdown over the Christmas holiday. A growing number of GOP lawmakers are even publicly calling for the government to shut down until next year, with some floating the party could keep it shuttered until Trump’s inauguration. That would mean the construction to build Trump’s inauguration platform outside the Capitol and other surroundings would stall, among various other issues.
“We can reset federal government appropriations after Trump is sworn in. Shut it down,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) tweeted.
Meanwhile, Trump isn’t being subtle: how Johnson handles this will impact if he can become speaker in a Jan. 3 vote. Early Thursday, Trump told Fox News Digital that if the GOP leader “gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker.” He also implied the Louisiana Republican needs to toughen up.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have started floating other names to replace him, including those who had backed Johnson for speaker as recently as last week.
“I’d be open to supporting Elon Musk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency. The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted, just two weeks after telling POLITICO she will back Johnson on the House floor.
Johnson has largely avoided talking to the press over the past 24 hours amid his dust-up with Trump.
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
