Congress
Conservatives weigh potential show of opposition against Johnson
Even as Republicans are increasingly optimistic that they’ll keep control of the House, some conservatives remain wary of Mike Johnson — and they’re discussing how to telegraph their concerns in next week’s secret leadership ballot.
With nearly two dozen races still outstanding, Johnson seems close to a major victory: Holding the tiny GOP majority, after a campaign season where he tied himself closely to Donald Trump and campaigned heavily for his at-risk members. Still, some House Republicans are mulling ways to signal their potential opposition to Johnson’s bid on the secret ballot, according to two Republicans familiar with the discussions, who were granted anonymity to talk about private plans.
Johnson is expected to easily clear the majority hurdle needed to become the speaker nominee in that meeting on Wednesday. But conservatives could field a candidate to run against him for the speaker nod, or may try to oppose him or vote present in the secret ballot.
That won’t be enough to derail his nomination, but it’s a warning for Johnson ahead of the real test in January, when he’ll need a majority vote on the House floor to take the gavel. If Republicans only take control of the House by a slim margin, as expected, that means Johnson will need near-unanimous support from his conference since he can’t count on any Democratic votes.
Enter skeptical conservatives, who want concessions from Johnson on the rules governing the chamber and a plan to secure conservative wins in exchange for their votes. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced similar demands two years ago, when it took him 15 ballots to get elected speaker on the House floor — he ultimately had to make several changes to the rules that gave conservatives more power and severely weakened his hold on the conference.
“There are a number of members who are still very undecided and withholding judgment,” said one GOP member, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. Their hesitations are tied to “past performance,” like how Johnson handled spending fights and Ukraine aid, but also questions about “whether or not we’re going to be able to deliver.”
If another candidate doesn’t challenge Johnson next week, that could allow leadership to call for a voice vote rather than a ballot — that’s how Paul Ryan earned the speaker nod in 2016 — handicapping any conservative attempt to formally vote against Johnson, at least until January. Hardliners largely in the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus backed a symbolic candidate, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), against McCarthy in 2022. But Biggs failed to get a majority in the conference vote.
The Arizona Republican declined to say if he would vote for Johnson next week or if he would mount another symbolic challenge. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he wasn’t sure yet if he would support Johnson, adding that his focus is on the rules for the next Congress.
“[The] devil is in the details,” Norman said, while joking that the group was not privately “scheming” but instead “we’re discussing, we’re planning.”
Johnson has a few advantages over McCarthy that could help him avoid a drawn-out leadership fight. McCarthy was looking to lead Republicans when Democrats were going to control both the Senate and the White House. Johnson, however, is looking at a Donald Trump presidency and possible control of both chambers of Congress, and many GOP lawmakers are eager to dive into their agenda.
There is a fear that Trump could retaliate against those hamstringing the GOP agenda, and his influence in deep-red districts could be particularly costly if he goes nuclear in ways he previously has, including encouraging primary challengers.
Plus, if Trump bearhugs Johnson, as the GOP leader predicts he will, that would complicate any effort to derail his speakership bid. If Johnson refuses to play ball on conservative demands, they would have to choose between backing down with little to show for it or risking Trump’s wrath. And if the floor fight that begins on Jan. 3 lasts more than three days, it risks delaying the congressional certification of Trump’s election victory.
But Johnson still has stubborn pockets of opposition he’ll have to work on. Eleven Republicans helped advance an ouster effort against Johnson earlier this year, though several have since indicated they would not have actually voted to boot him from office. He has some detractors outside that group as well, who publicly grumbled that they didn’t have faith in Johnson’s leadership but believed a May ouster would have plunged the conference into ill-timed chaos.
Johnson’s most vocal detractors are Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). While neither have publicly indicated since the election how they will vote next week, Greene has said she wants to delay the secret-ballot leadership contest. Other Johnson critics reside within the Freedom Caucus, and members of the group convened behind closed doors this week with incoming lawmakers to strategize about leadership votes, concessions they want on the rules and the start of the Trump administration.
Multiple conservatives say they are eager to protect the changes they extracted under McCarthy, including the internal rule that allows only one member to trigger a vote to oust a speaker, known as the motion to vacate. But they also have various demands about government spending — and the Dec. 20 government shutdown deadline could be a major test for Johnson ahead of the January floor vote.
But it is not just the conference’s conservatives who are trying to shape the next Congress.
A group of centrists have been crafting their own rule proposals for months. They filed potential amendments to the rules earlier this week, including one that would require a majority of House Republicans to support a motion to vacate in order to trigger a vote to oust a speaker, one member familiar with the effort told Blue Light News. Another allows members to be removed from committees if they block the party’s legislative priorities by opposing so-called rule votes on the House floor.
Some Republicans have also called for Johnson to overhaul the House Rules Committee by removing conservative Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Massie and Norman. The three were added to the typically leadership-aligned panel by McCarthy — part of his deal with hardliners two years ago. They’ve used their posts to cause occasional headaches for leadership, preventing bills from getting out of the committee until their demands are met.
Illustrating the tough spot Johnson is in, conservatives are ready to demand that the three members keep those spots.
“I’d like to stay on Rules,” Norman said. “I’m doing a good job.”
Elon Musk has a critical ally in Congress as he tries to slash federal bureaucracy at a break-neck pace: Rep. Jim Jordan.
The billionaire tech executive and the Ohio conservative hardliner have grown increasingly close since first being introduced by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy shortly after Musk’s takeover of Twitter in late 2022. Musk and Jordan, who chairs House Judiciary, talk roughly once a month, according to a person with knowledge of their relationship granted anonymity to speak candidly. And Jordan has already helped Musk advance a number of his goals since they became acquainted.
Now, the friendship is set to help both men further their personal and political agendas in Trump’s Washington.
For Musk, Jordan has a big say over legislation that could pave the way for more legal immigration in the high-skilled work sector, benefitting Musk’s business interests — to say nothing of Jordan’s subpoena power to go after Musk’s enemies. For Jordan, a direct line to Musk is a chance to bolster his bonafides with the conservative movement that considers the Tesla founder a hero.
“This guy, you could argue, was the single biggest — had the single biggest influence — on saving and protecting free speech and the First Amendment, for goodness’ sake,” Jordan said in an interview. “God bless Elon Musk.”
Jordan and Musk met at least twice post-election, first on Capitol Hill and then at Mar-a-Lago, Jordan said. In Washington, the two men discussed social media platforms, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and the Judiciary Committee’s work digging into the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission.
The meetings marked early opportunities for Jordan and Musk to explore how their dynamic was about to change as Republicans took control of Congress and the executive branch under President Donald Trump. Jordan’s committee has jurisdiction over a number of Musk’s primary political and policy interests, including immigration, deregulation, antitrust and the policing of social media platforms like X and its competitors.
As Musk focuses on reducing spending and regulations, “We can be helpful,” Jordan said.
Jordan is planning to use the Judiciary Committee to scrutinize companies and government officials that have allegedly suppressed conservative voices, including in Europe. Jordan last week sent a letter to the European Commission’s chief tech regulator inquiring about how it plans to enforce social media law against American companies, like X.
And despite being a hardliner on immigration, Jordan now says he’s open to working with Musk on legislation paving the way for more high-skilled immigrants to live and work in the country, although he has said they have not yet spoken about the topic. The debate over expanding “H-1B visas” for this purpose has long been a point of friction for conservatives who want to support emerging tech industries without being accused of displacing domestic workers.
“[We’ve] got to secure the border first,” Jordan said in an interview last month. “Once you’ve demonstrated that the border is actually secure, then we can entertain questions about the other key issues … whether it’s H1-B visas or other visas.”
Musk did not respond to a request for comment nor did a spokesperson for DOGE. Judiciary Committee spokesperson Nadgey Louis-Charles said the panel’s work on free speech issues started years ago.
“The Judiciary Committee’s investigation into censorship, which started in the 117th Congress, is all about defending the First Amendment and protecting free speech,” she said. “We’re standing up against any effort to silence Americans, and we’ve shown conclusively how Democrats colluded with Big Tech to censor Americans.”
But Jordan’s work has involved him wielding the gavel in Musk’s defense, such as when he called a Justice Department official in 2023 to testify over the government’s lawsuit against SpaceX, one of Musk’s companies, for allegedly discriminating in hiring against refugees and asylum seekers.
Jordan compelled the official to testify after SpaceX raised the issue with Jordan’s office directly, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the relationship between Jordan and Musk.
Their collaboration also culminated in the shutdown of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. That coalition, which went by the acronym GARM, was a project of the World Federation of Advertisers that sought to fight “harmful” content online in the wake of the 2019 mass shooting at New Zealand mosques, which was partially livestreamed on Facebook.
GARM caught Musk’s ire when advertisers reportedly pulled back spending on X. Jordan said he’d never heard of the group before, but that he launched a Judiciary Committee inquiry after Musk told him about it.
A July 2024 staff report from the Judiciary Committee, which adapted Musk’s “GARM is Harm” catchphrase for its title, charged that the coalition had seemingly “anti-democratic views of fundamental American freedom” and likely coordinated illegally to flout antitrust laws. Shortly afterward, Musk’s X sued the World Federation of Advertisers over antitrust violations and GARM quickly dissolved, maintaining its innocence but conceding its resources had been drained.
“When they announced they were going out of business, I called Elon up and said, ‘It all started with your one sentence — when you, Kevin [McCarthy], and I met — and you told me, ‘GARM is harm,’” Jordan said.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who was blocked Wednesday from issuing a subpoena to force Musk to testify on Capitol Hill, said he was alarmed by the Musk-Jordan partnership.
“Elon Musk is an unelected, unaccountable billionaire with absolutely zero knowledge of how government works and rampant conflicts of interest,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement. “He should be the subject of congressional investigations, not a beneficiary of politically motivated investigations into his opponents and competitors.”
When asked why Musk’s influence on Blue Light News was justified, Jordan said Musk deserved to be listened to as a leader on fighting censorship — plus, “he’s got the confidence of the president of the United States.”
“So I think that’s the key thing,” he added. “The guy who got elected by 77 million Americans wants him in this role.”
Jordan and Musk first entered into a “mind meld” — according to one former associate of Musk granted anonymity to talk about their relationship — following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. McCarthy introduced the two men, who had a shared interest in the alleged suppression of speech on social media platforms.
Jordan had for years been railing against “Big Tech” and its treatment of conservatives. Musk’s Twitter takeover offered some momentum for the cause. Musk seemed particularly excited about someone in Congress focusing so closely on the issue, said the former Musk associate.
All signs indicate that Jordan’s efforts to go after Musk’s adversaries will only continue to escalate. Jordan has even floated plans to work with the State Department to restrict entry into the U.S. by individuals and entities with track records of suppressing speech.
In the meantime, Jordan said he’s glad to come to Musk’s defense.
“What he’s done on … stopping censorship,” said Jordan, “has just been phenomenal.”
Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) barged into House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office unscheduled on Wednesday and challenged him about Elon Musk’s team gaining access to a sensitive payment system at the Treasury Department.
Their intrusion, amid an escalation of Democratic backlash against Musk’s sweep through the federal government, came shortly after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrived at the speaker’s office to discuss how to implement President Donald Trump’s tax agenda.
However, Moore said that Bessent was not in the room when she and Chu confronted Johnson.
“Gwen Moore forced her way in there, and then I got to go in right behind her,” Chu told reporters. “And she was already confronting Speaker Johnson about Treasury Secretary Bessent and the stealing of Americans’ private information, tax information that should never be stolen and given to this billionaire Elon Musk.”
Bessent, who was in Johnson’s office to meet with House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), gave members of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the payments system last weekend. The system controls trillions of dollars in payments for Social Security, tax refunds and myriad other government functions.
The Treasury Department told lawmakers Tuesday that Musk’s team currently has “read-only” access to the system and that their review “is not resulting” in any suspensions of or delays to disbursements approved by federal agencies.
A person who witnessed the episode at Johnson’s office denounced Chu’s and Moore’s actions.
“In the face of incredibly rude, extremely aggressive and frankly unhinged behavior, the Speaker was more than gracious and allowed the members into his personal office to hear their concerns,” said the person, who asked not to be named to freely discuss the matter.
A key ultraconservative holdout said Wednesday that enough progress has been made in stalled House budget talks that a blueprint needed to unlock President Donald Trump domestic policy plans could be released by the end of the week.
Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina is one of several Freedom Caucus members who sit on the House Budget Committee and have so far rejected Speaker Mike Johnson’s initial budget plan last week — causing GOP leaders to scramble for hundreds of billions more in spending cuts.
“We’re working on full text,” Norman said in a brief interview Wednesday. “But I will tell you, it’s promising, what we’re doing.”
Republicans are still working through deeply complex policy questions — including weighing how much in costly tax cuts the hard-liners will support. GOP leaders are acknowledging they may need to dial back some of the tax provisions to get the resolution through the Budget Committee, with senior House Republicans privately skeptical a final budget resolution can come together by Friday. They’re hopeful, instead, for next week.
Johnson’s entire timeline for passage of the Trump agenda faced near-collapse earlier this week due to the right-wing backlash. But Norman signaled he’s so far inclined to support the reworked budget resolution if “Trump’s on board with it” and if it accomplishes “what Trump wants to do” on border security, deportation operations and other measures.
Amid the House infighting, Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he would move forward with his own, competing blueprint next week.
Johnson said Wednesday he was “hoping” to present a revised budget plan to his conference by the end of this week. He also urged Graham to “understand the reality of the house” as “a very different chamber with very different dynamics.”
“The House needs to lead this if we’re going to have success,” he said. “We feel very optimistic we’re getting there, and we’re going to find that equilibrium point and get this done.”
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