FILE—Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is battling among his party to save his job. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)AP
Watching House Republicans go 15 rounds of voting in 2023 to settle on a speaker of the House was “embarrassing” and “humiliating” to see.
That’s according to Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, co-host of “Fox and Friends,” as the new Congress convenes Friday and House Speaker Mike Johnson could be in jeopardy of keeping his title. His grip on the gavel threatens not only his own survival but President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitious agenda once he’s sworn into office later this month.
Johnson has one of the slimmest majorities in modern times, 220-215, having lost seats in the November election. That leaves him relying on almost every Republican for support in the face of Democratic opposition.
It’s unclear Friday morning whether he will have the votes, despite Trump posting to his social media site Friday Johnson is “a fine man of great ability” and that “a win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party.”
“Do the Republicans realize how embarrassing it was when they went through those five rounds and how humiliating it was, I think, for the country and embarrassing it was global that we couldn’t pick a speaker for all those weeks after McCarthy was ousted?” Kilmeade said on Friday. “Do they fully understand that these are the same people they were holding out last time?”
A flop by Johnson could throw Monday’s congressional certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory into turmoil without a House speaker.
It took Republicans nearly a week and 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker in 2023, a spectacle unseen in modern times. McCarthy was then dumped by his party, a historic first, but he was also part of a long list of GOP speakers chased to early exits.
Heading into Friday, Johnson did not have the full support needed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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