Mike Johnson’s Honeymoon As House Speaker Is So Over

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) took the speaker’s gavel Oct. 25. Less than three months later, it’s unclear how much longer he’ll be able to keep it.

Some of the same House GOP intraparty dynamics that brought down Johnson’s predecessor, former speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), are beginning to show up again after being sublimated in the drive to get out of Washington at the end of last year.

Fanning those flames are two choices Johnson will have to make soon: how hard to push a deal with the Senate on annual spending that has ignited right-wing resistance; and whether to accept a deal on border policy changes that may emerge from the Senate.

“This is not what we all want. It’s not the best deal that we could get if we were in charge of both chambers [of Congress] and the White House. But it’s the best deal we could broker under the circumstances,” Johnson said Tuesday night of the proposed spending deal.

The bargain is on the overall amount of spending for government agencies and programs outside of Social Security and Medicare and would hew closely to the one haggled last year by McCarthy, at $1.59 trillion for the budget year ending Sept. 30. But Johnson said the new bargain would cut some related agreements that would have allowed more spending, and thus was a win.

But the original $1.59 trillion deal was the genesis for McCarthy’s troubles, and the changes won by Johnson did little to assuage right-wing House Republicans who say they’re worried about the national debt.

On Wednesday, a small group of hardliners opposed to the budget deal voted against a procedural measure setting rules for moving other legislation on the House floor. By tanking the “rule,” as it’s known, the group can effectively stop the