Speaker Mike Johnson spent months doing everything he could to hang on to his job come January, most notably a concerted charm offensive to keep President-elect Donald J. Trump placated and in his corner. It took just a few hours on Wednesday for it to all go bad.
The Louisiana Republican this week got a taste of what life could be like in the second Trump era beginning next month as he was mercilessly undercut on his complex year-end legislation by Mr. Trump and the president-elect’s exceedingly influential ally Elon Musk — that is, if Mr. Johnson is the speaker at all.
“We’ll see,” Mr. Trump told NBC News on Thursday when asked about his confidence in Mr. Johnson.
The speaker’s fate was thrust into question after House Republicans exploded in anger over the fully ornamented legislative Christmas tree he rolled out to fund the government into March, a 1,500-plus-page grab bag of year-end priorities and policy changes.
House Republicans, who have spent the weeks since the election talking about how they are going to remake the government in concert with Mr. Musk and cut all sorts of agencies and spending programs, were suddenly confronted with a bipartisan big-ticket measure that looked a lot like business as usual.
Mr. Trump demanded that Mr. Johnson jettison the deal he had cut with Democrats to keep the government open and, for good measure, raise the federal debt ceiling before Mr. Trump takes office. The speaker spent Thursday contorting himself to try to fulfill those demands, and by late afternoon had hatched a plan to do so, though it was unclear whether he would be able to push it through the House.
