JUST IN: Trump Issues Statement On Mike Johnson’s Future As Speaker

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may have the toughest job in Washington at the moment, but President-elect Donald Trump just threw him a lifeline. Assuming the Louisiana lawmaker can act “decisively and tough” and eliminate “all of the traps being set by Democrats,” Trump predicted he will “easily remain Speaker” in the next Congress.

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Trump, speaking with Fox News, built on his comments Wednesday threatening Republicans with primary contests if they fail to slim down a bloated spending package that has lit a fire underneath his conservative base and been stoked by Elon Musk, the incoming co-head of a new Department of Government Efficiency. A slew of MAGA lawmakers have lined up against the bill, citing excessive spending being sought by Democrats in order to secure their votes if Johnson ultimately needs to rely on them for passage. Trump’s comments came just hours after the bipartisan deal was all but killed.

“Anybody that supports a bill that doesn’t take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “If the speaker acts decisively, and tough, and gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker.”

In addition to his verbal prodding, Trump dispatched Vice President-elect J.D. Vance to meet with Johnson on Wednesday. Vance emerged from the meeting telling reporters the two had a “productive conversation,” and said he believes they will “be able to solve some problems here” and will continue “working on it,” the outlet added.

EXCLUSIVE: President-elect Donald #Trump told me @SpeakerJohnson will "easily remain speaker" for the next Congress if he "acts decisively and tough" and eliminates "all of the traps being set by Democrats" in the spending package @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/La0g63iz5v

— Brooke Singman (@BrookeSingman) December 19, 2024

The 1,547-page bill was meant to sustain federal spending at current FY2024 levels until March, at which point Republican majorities in the House and Senate could revisit the deal and ostensibly lower the spending threshold for further passages. On Wednesday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich publicly suggested that Johnson should pursue a “shorter resolution” that lasts just weeks, giving a Republican-led Washington a jump-start on securing a better deal in January. “Well, I think, first of all, the whole idea of the DOGE Committee has already paid for itself by having Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy begin to point out all the dumb things in this bill,” Gingrich said on Fox News. “The obvious answer is, kill this bill, pass a very short continuing resolution to get the new Republican Senate installed, and negotiate a new bill before January 20 that covers the rest of the year and gets the job done.”

Should he survive the Speaker’s election on January 3rd, 2025, Johnson must contend with an even slimmer one-vote majority in the 119th Congress, thanks in part to Trump’s plucking of members to serve in the new administration. Johnson, who rose to power after four tumultuous weeks of a leadership vacuum following the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, must appease Trump if he can expect help in cajoling some of the caucus’s most conservative members to sign on to additional government spending. Among the lawmakers who first opposed the deal are stalwart MAGA members like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-GA), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

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