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“We have to serve the people, and we will,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to play offensively.”
Mr. Johnson’s calculations are further complicated by Mr. Trump’s selection of at least three House Republicans to join his administration. President Trump has already selected New York representative Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations and Florida representative Mike Walz as national security adviser. On Wednesday, President Trump also announced his nomination of Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general.
Gaetz, a right-wing flame monger, was a thorn in former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s side and ultimately led a successful attack that ousted him from office. Reactions to Gaetz’s nomination ranged from bewilderment to outrage, even from members of the president-elect’s party.
Despite an increasingly slim majority, Mr. Johnson dismissed concerns about how Mr. Trump’s selection would affect House Republicans’ ability to legislate.
“We are ashamed of our wealth,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday. “We have a really talented Republican conference. We have some really talented, talented people here, many of whom could serve in very important positions in the new administration, but President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”
Democrats campaigned unsuccessfully on the need to rein in the current “dysfunction” in Congress, as Republicans won a slim majority and repeatedly stalled the House.
When Republicans took control of the House majority in January 2023, it took 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker, as about 20 far-right members withheld their support from the conference’s nominees. It became necessary. Nine months later, Mr. McCarthy was ousted after eight of his Republican colleagues joined House Democrats in voting to remove him as speaker.
After Mr. McCarthy resigned, Mr. Johnson, then a relatively unknown Republican congressman from Louisiana, took over as speaker after a highly tumultuous election.
Over the past year, Mr. Johnson has gone out of his way to appease the ideologically diverse members of the council. His efforts fell short of some, including far-right party member Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. Mr Green tried to expel Mr Johnson as speaker in May, but the resolution was easily overridden by a chamber that seemed exhausted by the chaos that has characterized this parliament.
Despite these obstacles, Republicans were able to maintain control of the House, with Mr. Johnson on Wednesday winning the Republican nomination to remain speaker and retain the gavel following a full House vote in the new year. We are on track to do so.
In a meeting with House Republicans in Washington, Trump supported extending Johnson’s term as prime minister, demonstrating his full support and welcoming him. Prime Minister Johnson responded to President Trump’s praise by praising him as a “unique figure in American history.”
“They called Bill Clinton the Comeback Kid,” Johnson said. “(Trump) is the king of comebacks.”
Although Democrats failed in their campaign to flip the House, they touted the party’s ability to mitigate losses in a challenging national environment. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries cited the party’s gains in its home state of New York as evidence of its efforts.
“Here in New York State, Donald Trump has outperformed almost any other Republican presidential candidate in modern political history, winning even some of the districts we held or flipped. We were able to defeat three Republican incumbents,” Jeffries told Spectrum News NY1 last week. “So I think there are lessons to be learned in all directions from this election. We will certainly do a post-mortem at the appropriate time.”
That postmortem could help Democrats regain a majority in the 2026 midterm elections, but for now they say an all-Republican Congress is ready and willing to do Trump’s bidding. have to face reality.
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