Johnson Needs Trump’s Permission Not to Shut Down the Government

Marjorie Taylor Greene tries to get an anti-McCarthy rebel to speak with Donald Trump during the battle to choose a Speaker a year ago. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Newbie House Speaker Mike Johnson has a lot to learn about the snake-pit politics of the conference he is trying to lead. And he’s facing a multifaceted crisis any day now as he tries to snuff out mutinies on his right flank against the spending-level deal he cut with Chuck Schumer, and against the possibility he will accept a compromise on immigration and asylum policies in order to give Joe Biden the aid to Ukraine and Israel he is seeking. In both cases, hard-core members of the House Freedom Caucus want to provoke a government shutdown, or at least threaten one with significant seriousness to scare Democrats and reassure the GOP’s MAGA base that they are fighters.

Johnson maintains that a shutdown could produce an electoral disaster for Republicans this November, but he’s also acutely aware of what happened to his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, whose gavel was taken away by angry conservatives when he accepted votes from The Enemy to avoid a debt default and then a shutdown. So he’s looking for cover from the most powerful MAGA validator of them all, as he revealed in an interview with conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt:

H.H.: Have you personally endorsed anyone, yet, in the presidential race, Mr. Johnson?

M.J.: I did. I’ve endorsed President Trump. And I believe he will be the nominee, and I’m convinced he’s going to win the White House again. And that’ll be a great day for America.

H.H.: Is the former president helping you pass this must-pass deal?

M.J.: I’m planning to give him a call today to talk him through the details of it. He’s a little busy. He’s got the Iowa Caucus and all these other things on his plate right now. But no, he and I have a very close relationship. He’s been an enthusiastic supporter of my leadership here, and I expect he’ll be doing that again.

Yes, Mike Johnson is seeking Donald Trump’s permission not to shut down the federal government. If he gets it, there may still be some grumbling from HFC types about the godless runaway spending that threatens to rob our children of their priceless heritage of freedom, but they probably won’t thrown Johnson out of the speaker’s chair, at least for now.

Johnson surely knows that Trump can giveth and Trump can taketh away. When McCarthy was struggling through 15 ballots to become speaker a year ago, the former president (via intermediary Marjorie Taylor Greene) reportedly talked a few rebels into giving the Californian a chance to hold the gavel he wanted so desperately. But in October when Matt Gaetz forced a vote on a “motion to vacate the chair” that spelled McCarthy’s doom, Trump gave the battle among his House supporters a wide berth.

It will be interesting to see if Johnson can elicit a clear statement of support from Trump; he was, after all, arguably the point man in Congress for the then-president’s January 6 plot to overturn the 2020 election results. But as the speaker says, Trump has other fish to fry right now, as he seeks to destroy his rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire while fighting in court to avoid a trip to the slammer. It’s not like the 45th president has any inherent problem with shutting down the government: In December of 2018, he insisted on triggering the longest shutdown (35 days) in American history. He was demanding a border wall at the time, and there’s no question he is determined to use the immigration issue once again as a signature motif of his presidential comeback bid. So he may not be all that open to Mike Johnson’s pleas for sweet reason.