by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News December 30, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday endorsed Mike Johnson to continue as House Speaker. The House will vote on Friday to elect the Speaker for the new Congress.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Johnson’s handling of the end-of-year funding package to keep the government open had thrown his Speakership into question. Several Republicans have not committed to support Johnson who can only afford a few defections with the GOP holding a slim majority.

New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler said those in the GOP who are thinking of not voting for Johnson “are playing with fire, and if they think they’re somehow going to get a more conservative speaker, they’re kidding themselves,”

What happens if Johnson, or no other Republicans, is elected Speaker?

Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram noted:

“The House absolutely, unequivocally cannot do anything until it elects a speaker, period. This also means that the House cannot certify the results of the Electoral College, making Trump the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 6. What happens if the Electoral College isn’t sorted out by Jan. 20? Well, President Biden is done, so he’s gone. The same with Harris. Next in the presidential line of succession is the speaker of the House.

“Well, there’s no speaker, so who becomes the president? If the House is still frittering away time trying to elect a speaker on Jan 20, [president pro tempore of the Senate Chuck] Grassley, likely becomes ‘acting president.’ I write likely because this gets into some serious, extra-constitutional turf. These are unprecedented scenarios. Strange lands never visited in the American political experience.”

Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, addressed the concern, saying: “No one ran against Mike Johnson. To this day, and here we are inside a week of the speaker’s vote, there is still not a single declared candidate.

“But as you know, we have five Republicans that won’t commit to voting for Mike Johnson, and he can only lose one or two votes. So I sure hope we don’t repeat this, and I’m strongly encouraging my colleagues to go ahead and elect Mike Johnson, and let’s get started on passing President Trump’s agenda.”

Fox News host Jason Chaffetz suggested that President-elect Donald Trump get on the phone with any Republican House members still on the fence about Johnson.

“Those five or six members who won’t commit to voting for Mike Johnson,” Chaffetz said, “all this is going to do is delay us.

“It’s going to delay the certification of President Trump’s election, it’s going to delay the start of his first hundred days in office which is the most important time frame of his whole presidency. That’s when you get the most done, historically. So I strongly encourage President Trump to get on the phone and try to get everyone united so we can work together as a team and make America great Again.”

Trump’s signal of support for Johnson came at the end of a post in which the president-elect slammed Democrats for running a “very expensive ‘sinking ship,’ ” and “embracing DOJ & FBI WEAPONIZATION against their political opponent, ME.”

“BUT IT DIDN’T WORK, IT WAS A DISASTER!!!” Trump wrote. “LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration.”

Timely: Defund Fake News

The American Free Press is Back!

  ‘Playing with fire?’ Trump gives Speaker Johnson ‘complete & total endorsement’, WorldTribune.com