WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed confidence Wednesday that Republicans could pursue President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda despite what he acknowledged is likely to be a razor-thin congressional majority.
It was all but certain in the weeks following November’s election that the GOP would enjoy a governing trifecta under the second Trump administration, maintaining their control of the House while also seizing control of the Senate. But as the final breakdown in the lower chamber comes into focus, Republicans may end up with an even tighter House majority than they’ve had this Congress.
“There’s still some recounts taking place, but it looks like the final number will be 220 Republicans, 215 Democrats,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference Wednesday morning.
But several House Republicans will depart the chamber come January. Florida Representative Mike Waltz is joining the Trump administration as the president-elect’s national security adviser. Similarly, New York Representative Elise Stefanik will give up her seat to become the White House’s ambassador to the United Nations.
And Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, Trump’s ill-fated attorney general nominee, resigned from Congress last month ahead of an ethics report into allegations of sexual misconduct. Gaetz, though he was reelected to represent the Sunshine State’s First Congressional District, has said he will not return to the House.
Johnson noted those departures on Wednesday, pointing out that the Republican House majority could be as small as 217 to 215.
“So, yes, do the math,” he said. “We have nothing to spare.”
But, the speaker added, it wouldn’t be the first time Republicans have had to navigate such a challenge. The GOP’s advantage over Democrats in the House has been fewer than 10 votes for the entire time it’s held the majority — a dynamic that has lent itself to intra-party squabbling and rebellion on more than one occasion.
Johnson’s ascent to speaker was itself a product of the razor-thin Republican majority; GOP infighting last year over the debt ceiling and the federal budget ultimately led to the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and paved the way for Johnson’s election as the chamber’s top lawmaker.
And Johnson has already faced similar challenges to his leadership.
The speaker, though, predicted that the three vacant Republican seats would be filled by “late spring” and signaled confidence to reporters that his colleagues were up to the task of advancing President-elect Trump’s ambitious agenda.
“We’ve all got to row in the same direction,” Johnson said. “The first 100 days’ agenda is going to be very aggressive.”
That cooperation, he continued, should also be bicameral. He noted that he had met with incoming Senate Republican leadership and that the GOP caucus was unified across the chambers.
“This isn’t varsity and junior varsity — this is everybody on the varsity team together,” Johnson said, projecting that the forthcoming Congress could be one of the most “consequential” in years, suggesting broad reversals of many Democratic policies.
“We’ve got to fix everything,” the speaker said.
Before President-elect Trump takes the oath of office and kickstarts the Republican governing trifecta, however, lawmakers need to address some pressing issues — namely, a short-term federal budget bill slated to expire by the end of the year.
With full-year spending bills in a holding pattern, Congress will have to pass yet another stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, to avert a government shutdown after Dec. 20. Such a short-term spending patch likely would freeze funding for federal programs at current levels through March, a grim prospect for President-elect Trump and his plans for the first few months of his second administration.
But while a continuing resolution appears inevitable for both parties, Johnson said Monday that any budget patch would not include additional funding for Ukraine’s defense against Russia, despite requests from President Joe Biden for such a provision.
“We have a newly elected president, and we’re going to wait to take the new commander in chief’s direction on that,” the speaker told reporters. “I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”