House Republicans are doing everything they can to project unity in anticipation of the party taking total control of government under President-elect Trump.
But the House GOP, which has been marked by chaos and faces another slim majority for the next two years, will encounter a series of obstacles as it aims to push through an ambitious agenda. Amid that, it is likely to grapple with surprises from Trump.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), tasked with rounding up votes for the party’s legislative priorities, forecasted those coming disputes.
“It may not always be smooth sailing, and we may have some disagreements along the way” as they work to implement the Trump agenda, Emmer said after being reelected to his post on Wednesday. “But I’ve always been a firm believer that there’s more that unites us than divides us.”
Warring factions are trying to play nice. Under a deal struck by hard-line conservatives and anti-chaos Republicans, it will take at least nine members, rather than a single member, to force a vote on ousting the Speaker — which brought the House to a halt when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted last year.
In return, proposed measures to punish members who stepped out of line on procedural votes — once-rare moves that were used multiple times this Congress to block legislative activity — were dropped.
And Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was unanimously renominated to his position, though he still will have to keep the fractious conference together to be reelected on the House floor.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-Okla.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, predicted that Johnson will keep the gavel fairly easily.
“There’s a movement to prepare Trump” to start off on a good note, Norman said. “If we can hold out, I think we will.
But Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member on the House Rules Committee, said the new nine-person threshold for the “motion to vacate” does not cement Johnson’s position or insulate the House from GOP-induced chaos.
“Going from one to nine doesn’t guarantee that we’re going to have stability here,” McGovern said. “[That] Mike Johnson and kind of the Republican leadership agreed to that deal tells me that they’re a cheap date.”
And Republicans are already anticipating a rocky road as GOP leaders plan an ambitious legislative agenda under total control of government.
The first order of business will be a massive tax package, which Republicans hope to pass through the budget reconciliation process that bypasses the Senate filibuster and the need to get Democratic support.
The price tag on that bill, if it is not coupled with spending reductions elsewhere, will get resistance from budget hawks.
“We should not advance a bill that is not, at a minimum, objectively deficitly neutral,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the most vocal hard-line conservatives in the House GOP, said of the planned tax package.
“Republican unity will last as long as we unite to advance the agenda that we were sent here to advance, that doesn’t mean more deficits. And that doesn’t mean, you know, already talking about things like walking away from H.R. 2 and border security,” Roy said, referencing the House GOP’s border bill that passed in 2023.
Republicans in other corners of the House GOP caucus hope that Trump will keep the House members in line.
“If they get in front of Trump’s agenda, where they become the obstructionists, I think Trump is strong enough to parachute in their district with a megaphone. And I’m not sure that members could withstand that,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.)
He mentioned departing Freedom Caucus members Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.).
Good, who chaired the Freedom Caucus, lost a primary after Trump endorsed his opponent because of Good’s endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in the presidential primary. Rosendale, who was photographed declining to take Trump’s call during the drawn-out election of McCarthy to the Speakership, dropped a Senate bid and declined to seek reelection to the House after Trump endorsed now-Sen.-elect Tim Sheehy (R).
Even some Democrats are sensing that fear of Trump’s wrath could lead to a more unified GOP.
“Frankly, Trump may be the thing that holds them together,” Rep. John Larson (R-Conn.) said of the House Republican conference.
Trump, though, could also lead to division in the party. His selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be attorney general was one of the first jolts to the party.
House Republicans were gathered for a closed-door GOP conference meeting when the Gaetz news broke, and one source in the room said there were “audible gasps.” Gaetz is loathed by many of his House GOP colleagues, but boosted by others.
Zinke, who led the Department of the Interior in Trump’s first term, said there were plenty of Trump surprises when he was in the Cabinet.
“Sometimes I didn’t know whether he was intentionally messing with people or, you know, you never know, because he is very, very bright … sometimes guys from Manhattan, [are] just messing with ya,” Zinke said.
Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis contributed.
