Trump intervenes to secure Mike Johnson's election as speaker, highlighting Republican party divisions
(MENAFN) President-elect Donald trump answered the phone as two Republican congressmen stood between Mike Johnson and the speaker's gavel.
He spoke to Representatives Keith Self of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina from the golf course on Friday afternoon, persuading them to eventually follow Johnson.
The Louisiana Republican won his bid to keep the gavel and steer a closely divided house into the new year with one vote left. The drama developed with much less certainty and required Trump's intervention right up until the very end, even though the official record will say he received the required 218 votes on the first attempt. The 119th Congress's first vote strengthened the president-elect's grip on the Republican Party and highlighted the difficulty he will have in holding it together over the next two years before the 2026 midterm elections, which might jeopardize the GOP's Washington trifecta.
According to two people who were acquainted with the presentation, Trump claimed that Republicans needed to cooperate and that voters would not put up with the turmoil that would result if they were unable to agree on a speaker.
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