Trump endorsed Mike Johnson for House speaker. His future is still anything but certain
The IndependentSign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The support of the president-elect could be enough to move Trump loyalists like Anna Paulina Luna, who told reporters last month that she was undecided, back into Johnson’s camp. The new leader of the Republican Senate caucus, John Thune, is not expected to present too much of an obstacle to the Trump administration’s legislative agenda but will be a hard sell on any of Trump’s more outlandish demands, such as his most recent urgings for his party to cause a government shutdown unless Democrats consented to adding language raising the debt ceiling to a short-term funding measure. “Trump’s endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Thomas Massie of Kentucky told reporters. He explained his frustrations to The Independent last month: “’s basically a neocon, and Trump, at least in his campaign, is the opposite of that.. Speaker Johnson is going to have to do a 180 on a lot of the policy that he’s shoved down our throats in the House if he’s going to support Trump’s mandate.”