Nancy Mace got Trump on the phone to persuade holdout Republicans to support Mike Johnson’s speakership, according to The Washington Post. After Republicans Ralph Norman and Keith Self initially opposed Johnson, Representative Nancy Mace called Donald Trump directly and then passed the phone to her two colleagues. Norman and Self then spoke to Johnson before flipping their votes to him to give him the 218 votes needed for speaker.
Self told reporters he had a “lively” phone call with the president-elect. “We shored up the reconciliation team because we know that this will be a heavy lift to get the Trump agenda across the line in the reconciliation package.… That’s all we did,” said Self, according to CNN’s Manu Raju. Trump publicly congratulated Johnson on Truth Social following the vote.
What exactly convinced these congressmen to change their votes in 30 minutes remains to be seen. But even with this flip, the Republican infighting seems to be just getting started.
