Congress

Johnson prevailed in the speakership race. His problems are just beginning.

Published

1 year ago

January 4, 2025

Mike Johnson managed to avoid a drawn-out battle for the speakership on Friday. His headaches are just getting started.

While Johnson ultimately secured enough votes to remain speaker on the first ballot — after two members switched their votes after further lobbying from Johnson and phone calls with President-elect Donald Trump — the aftermath of his victory made it clear that conservatives see this as a tentative truce.

Hardliners said they have certain expectations for the speaker going forward, and signaled that forcing a vote to oust him is on the table if Johnson doesn’t meet them. The newly adopted rules package requires the support of nine GOP members, up from the current threshold of one, to trigger an ouster vote.

“It’s always going to be there. I think our founders wanted it there for a reason as a check,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.),who backed Kevin McCarthy’s ouster last year, when asked by Blue Light News if a motion to vacate is on the table. “I really hope it never has to be used again. But we’ll see.”

Yet Johnson’s allies are hoping the speaker’s race is an early glimpse of things to come — that Republicans will ultimately get in line on party priorities, even if the process is messy and chaotic. And they’re encouraged by Trump’s repeated support for the speaker, after the incoming president made it clear he’s willing to lobby members and keep them in line, even when Johnson isn’t able to do so.

“I just hope President Trump pounds them into submission,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.).

Regardless, the speakership episode is a reality check about what the next two years have in store for Johnson. His margin is only set to shrink in the near-term as some members leave for positions in the Trump administration, and he can currently only afford to lose one GOP vote on partisan legislation. He’ll need near, if not complete, unity to pass Trump’s agenda on the border, energy and taxes — or anything else. If he relies on Democrats to move must-pass items like spending legislation now that the GOP has total control of Congress, he’ll risk a severe backlash from his right flank.

Johnson’s critics are already drawing lines in the sand. Eleven members of the Freedom Caucus, who comprise the group’s board, circulated a letter to all of their colleagues just as Johnson won the speaker’s vote. It laid out what they believe Johnson should have agreed to and what they want to see in legislation moving forward, including lowering inflation, ending stock trading by members of Congress and other provisions.

And they notably included an indirect salvo at Johnson’s leadership in the letter, saying that “there is always room to negotiate on so-called ‘leadership’ positions under the rules.”

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), one of the signatures on the letter, demurred when it was suggested that it seemed like a warning: “It is what it is.”

“It’s there for a reason. It’s about accountability. Mike has laid out a plan and a vision and now he’s got to execute it,” Ogles said about early mentions of speaker-ousting measures, known as the motion to vacate. “And if he doesn’t, you have … some members that will be willing to pull the pin on the hand grenade.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who had declined to publicly support Johnson up until the speakership vote, brushed off questions about the motion to vacate immediately after the speaker’s vote but hinted at “consequences” if Congress couldn’t deliver on certain priorities.

“Let’s make no mistake about it. There will be things that are, in fact, red lines that we need to deliver. We can have no more of the nonsense that happened before Christmas,” Roy said.

The warnings are a flashback to the McCarthy era. Though the former speaker managed to win the speaker’s gavel after 15 ballots, eight Republicans joined Democrats to boot him just 10 months later. Many of those rebels said it was because of his handling of government funding, though the Californian’s allies believe some, namely former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), just had a personal ax to grind.

Johnson has a better relationship with his right flank than McCarthy, as someone who was widely known as a conservative himself before taking the gavel. And he spent the back half of the year working to shore up his relationship with hardline conservatives after a failed ouster effort against him last May. He focused the conference largely on GOP messaging bills, criss-crossed the country helping reelect his members and put some of his critics on key panels, including the Intelligence Committee.

“We don’t want to sound the alarm. This is not what it was after Speaker McCarthy was vacated. That situation has built lines of communication because we don’t want to go through that again,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.).

Jennifer Scholtes and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Congress

Mullin markup still on

Published

8 minutes ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A committee vote on Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation as Homeland Security secretary remains on track for Thursday despite a fiery sparring session Wednesday between the Oklahoma Republican and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the chair of the panel that must approve his nomination.

A spokesperson for Paul said after the tense exchange — during which Mullin refused to apologize for comments saying he “understood” why Paul was violently assaulted in 2017 — that the committee vote “is on for tomorrow.”

As chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Paul has wide latitude to schedule action on Mullin’s nomination.

Congress

Elizabeth Warren backs Mallory McMorrow in Michigan Senate primary

Published

3 hours ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is wading into Michigan’s closely contested Democratic Senate primary, backing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow over two rivals.

It’s a somewhat counterintuitive endorsement for the progressive U.S. senator who has made her backing of Medicare for All a core part of her political identity. McMorrow opposes Medicare for All, while Abdul El-Sayed, one of McMorrow’s opponents, supports it.

But the endorsement is a coup for McMorrow as she seeks to win over the progressive wing of the party in her bid to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. McMorrow has now secured endorsements from four senators — with Warren joining Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Peter Welch of Vermont — more than opponents El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens.

Warren said in a statement her relationship with McMorrow goes back nearly a decade.

“I remember first calling Michigan State Senator McMorrow after she flipped a Republican-held seat in 2018, and I was immediately inspired by her ideas, her plans, and her fight to make a real difference,” she said. “Mallory is both a fighter and a winner, and I’m proud to endorse her because she’s the proven leader Michigan needs in the United States Senate.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Tulsi Gabbard takes the hot seat

Published

3 hours ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tulsi Gabbard heads into Senate Intelligence on Wednesday facing one of the most fraught moments of her tenure as director of national intelligence.

The longtime anti-interventionist is set to be the main character at Wednesday morning’s worldwide threats hearing when she appears with other administration officials, after former top aide Joe Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the Iran war.

Kent’s resignation has raised the question of how much longer Gabbard will serve in the administration. She’s largely been silent since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran in late February, and she’s been kept out of military planning on Iran since the U.S. struck nuclear sites in the country last summer.

“Both Kent and Gabbard have had less and less influence,” one House Republican granted anonymity to speak openly said. “They’ve been sidelined.” Gabbard will appear before House Intelligence Thursday.

Gabbard’s testimony last March that downplayed Iran’s nuclear weapons program — prompting a “she’s wrong” from President Donald Trump — is poised to be revisited by senators at Wednesday morning’s hearing, as are her anti-war positions.

“The president made the right move based upon the information that we’ve all seen in classified sessions,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, an intel committee Republican. He signaled that Gabbard could be asked about her previous assessment at the hearing.

Around the same time in Dirksen this morning, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) will be in the hot seat as he testifies on his nomination to replace Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary.

Senate Homeland Security is expected to quickly approve the nomination Thursday, though it’s TBD to what extent Mullin will get bipartisan support beyond Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).

“We actually have a pretty good working relationship, and have worked on projects together, but we do have a lot of questions,” said Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a committee Democrat who has yet to say how he’ll vote. “Largely it’s like, who really is in charge of DHS? … Is it going to be Stephen Miller’s in charge?”

What else we’re watching:

— House gets a FISA briefing: Trump officials will host a classified briefing for House members at 3:30 p.m. on the administration’s push for a clean reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, due to expire April 20, as conservatives threaten to tank the effort.

Speaker Mike Johnson said he believes his members who are currently opposed to a clean, 18-month extension will ultimately vote for the party-line rule. But two House Republicans are already publicly vowing to oppose the procedural rule to tee up a clean FISA reauthorization, which leaders are aiming to put on the floor next week.

— DOJ officials brief House Oversight: Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to brief House Oversight Committee members on the Justice Department’s ongoing Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

It comes the day after the chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), subpoenaed Bondi to testify under oath as part of the committee’s own Epstein probe. But a GOP spokesperson for the committee said that Wednesday’s briefing, which was scheduled at DOJ’s request, won’t be a substitute for Bondi’s future testimony.

John Sakellariadis, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.