In theory, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., should be feeling good about the future. On Election Day his party won the White House and the Senate and held on to the House, setting the Republican Party up for unified action to pass news laws and bring its vision for the country to life. It’s the kind of scenario that party leaders live for: an opportunity to work with their colleagues to get a bunch of stuff done.
And yet, before the next cycle of Congress has even begun, there are already signs of internal strife on the horizon for the GOP — and the possibility that Johnson might not keep his job.
What’s important to pay attention to isn’t just that members of Johnson’s own party turned on him, but how and why they did.
Johnson spent weeks negotiating a bipartisan government funding deal — only to see it torpedoed at the eleventh hour by President-elect Donald Trump, tech mogul Elon Musk and members of his own caucus. Democrats were already on board, but Trump issued new demands, including reducing the spending included in the funding bill and, in a head-spinning twist, abolishing the debt ceiling. (Neither party had been discussing the debt ceiling, and many Democrats are reportedly reluctant to agree to abolishing it because of how it could enable Trump’s regressive policy ideas.) Johnson then had to scramble to develop a new plan to get Trump’s seal of approval. The new bill doesn’t propose abolishing the debt ceiling, but it does call for extending a suspension of a cap on federal borrowing until 2027.
Thursday afternoon, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., described Johnson’s new proposal as “laughable,” and as of Thursday evening, Democrats had yet to agree to a new deal to avert a government shutdown that would begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
This dizzying episode of chaos illustrates the immense pressure Johnson would face in the new Congress if he were to be re-elected House speaker. That’s far from guaranteed: The Washington Post reports that “enough GOP members have questioned his leadership, both publicly and privately, that he may lack the support he needs.” Johnson is in a precarious position — and even if he remains speaker, there’s a huge chance he could be ousted in the likely scenario that there are more rounds of turmoil like these and Trump sours on him.
Regardless of what happens with this funding bill, what’s important to pay attention to isn’t just that members of Johnson’s own party turned on him, but how and why they did. Musk’s entry into the game is a key part of it.
The richest man in the world has emerged as a wayward wrecking ball who could have a long-term effect on the way Republicans organize themselves. Musk led the charge against the bill before Trump did. Notably, he has also been operating in a Trumpian manner: A number of his objections to the funding bill Johnson had negotiated were based on falsehoods. As Politico explains, Musk whipped up fury over the bill by making false claims about steep salary raises for members of Congress, funding for an NFL stadium in Washington, D.C., and a provision that he said blocked House Republicans from investigating the House Jan. 6 committee. This is how Musk was engaging with the party that he supports.
Musk is a political neophyte but has rapidly become a power player in GOP politics, in part by weaponizing his huge following on X effectively. “My phone was ringing off the hook,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., told The Associated Press. “The people who elected us are listening to Elon Musk.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., floated the idea that Musk should be the new House speaker. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said that she was open to it and that “the establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday.”
Setting aside how unlikely this idea is, it speaks to a kind of appetite for grandstanding-type activism within the GOP caucus that’s going to keep hitting Johnson hard. On top of all this, Musk doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. As my colleague James Downie has pointed out, Johnson reported texting directly with Musk and former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy this week, and, in Johnson’s telling, the nature of their correspondence doesn’t suggest the two have anything approaching sophisticated or coordinated political action: “Johnson was not even consulting Musk and Ramaswamy on areas where they might have expertise,” Downie wrote. “He was explaining to these men very basic facts about how the House of Representatives works.” Musk has no experience with the tedium and challenges of building coalitions, whipping votes and crafting compromises to pass legislation in Congress. Instead, he seems to view Washington through the lens of, well, a billionaire outsider. Musk responded “YES” to a post on X that read, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” The world’s richest man will be fine, but average people depend on their government functioning. Of course, Johnson’s new task of having to deal with Musk comes on top of the unpredictability and difficulty that come with trying to cooperate with Trump. Trump’s undermining of Johnson’s proposal and his demanding asks of him on the funding proposal are a preview of what any speaker will face continually for at least the next two years. And whether that speaker is Johnson or another Republican, the problem will remain. It’s never going to be easy to coordinate action in a party filled with hyper-individualistic know-nothing actors who are willing to rip into one another in bad faith.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this bio. 
