President-elect Donald Trump endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson's bid to remain speaker, days before the House returns to vote on a new leader.
The House is set to vote on the speaker on Friday, with the lower house unable to begin functioning of the new legislative session without the speaker.
“The American people need immediate relief from all the destructive policies of the previous administration,” Trump wrote On Monday morning on his Truth social platform. “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard-working, religious man. He will do the right thing and we will keep winning. Mike has my full and complete support. MAGA!!!”
Johnson's speech is in jeopardy after some Republicans expressed disappointment at his decision reach a government funding agreement It had overwhelming Democratic support to keep the government open before the Christmas holidays. But the ongoing proposal did not include an extension or elimination of the debt ceiling, even though Trump accepted an even earlier bipartisan agreement in part because it did not raise the nation's borrowing limit while President Biden is still in office. .
The GOP will have only a slim majority in the 119th Congress, making it difficult to elect a speaker without near-complete unity — and the majority will become even smaller as several Republican members of Congress are set to be nominated for positions in the Trump administration .
Johnson has been a speaker From October 2023The lower chamber descended into chaos after a handful of House Republicans rebelled against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy's own bid to become speaker The election was held over several days with a slight majority in 2023 and 15 ballots were taken – more rounds of voting than at any other time before the Civil War.