The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Can Johnson win? And at what cost?

Schumer dishes on 2025 and his advice for Thune

Power Matrix year in review

House Ethics drops cases against four members

THE TOP

Can Johnson win? And at what cost?

Happy Wednesday morning.

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025. We’re only publishing AM editions this week. But given the busy news cycle, we’ll send out texts and special editions as needed.

There are 19 days until Donald Trump is sworn in for his second term as president. And it’s just two days until the 119th Congress kicks off. That’s where we’ll begin.

The main event: Choosing a speaker. The House will vote Friday to elect a speaker for the 119th Congress. Trump has endorsed Speaker Mike Johnson for another term. Trump told reporters Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago that he isn’t calling anyone on Johnson’s behalf, but he will if necessary.

“He’s the one that can win right now,” Trump said of Johnson. “People like him. Almost everybody likes him. Others are very good too but they have 30 or 40 people that don’t like [them.] So that’s pretty tough. … He’s a good man. He’s a wonderful person. And that’s what you need.”

Yet Johnson is in a tight spot — to say the least. There are roughly a dozen House Republicans who have expressed skepticism about electing the speaker to another term. And with the paper-thin GOP majority, that’s problematic.

So there are several questions to focus on. The first is obvious: Can Johnson win? The second: Will it take Johnson multiple ballots to secure the speakership? Third: Does Johnson weaken himself so much in his quest to keep the speaker’s gavel that he can’t govern? And lastly but most importantly: Does Trump pull back if he sees Johnson’s weakness?

In addition to his Trump endorsement, Johnson’s greatest attribute is that there’s still no obvious alternative to the Louisiana Republican. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) all want the job, but like in October 2023, they all face huge obstacles.

Jordan’s allies will never let Scalise be speaker, and vice versa. Emmer has made strides in his relationship with Trump, but he’s still seen as a bit of a turncoat in Trump world after voting to certify Joe Biden’s victory in 2021.

Other potential candidates — say House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) — don’t want the job.

The basics. House Republicans hold a razor-slim majority with just 219 seats. They’d have 220 if former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) shows up on Jan. 3. Gaetz resigned from the 118th Congress but he could — theoretically — get sworn into the 119th.

This all means that Johnson may only be able to lose between one and three votes, depending on whether members vote for another candidate by name and who votes “present.” Whether all 215 Democrats will be there is another question (Members don’t get paid if they don’t get sworn in, which happens after the speaker vote.) We won’t know more until members start voting on the floor.

House Republicans don’t currently plan to have a GOP conference meeting Friday morning ahead of the vote.

The no’s. Inside the House Republican leadership, just one GOP lawmaker is seen as completely unmovable and will oppose Johnson come hell or high water: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Massie has chafed at Johnson’s leadership for months. Massie has been on a bit of an X rampage about Johnson of late. He laid out a quite detailed case against Johnson on New Year’s Eve.

Then there are those like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). Roy has been calling colleagues to discuss how to proceed. A Jordan ally, Roy has cast doubt on Johnson’s ability to advance Trump’s agenda. But even those closest to Jordan say that they don’t think it’s feasible for the Ohio Republican to become speaker.

There are 11 Republicans who voted to oust Johnson back in May after he brought a massive Ukraine aid package to the floor: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Eric Burlison (Mo.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Barry Moore (Ala.), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Roy and Massie.

Biggs told Fox News he’s not committed to Johnson publicly or privately. Burlison has been sharply critical of Johnson since the recent government-funding vote. Spartz sent Johnson a list of demands — many of them unachievable — in exchange for her vote.

What Johnson has going for him. Johnson has been working the conference by phone over the Christmas break. He held a call with the Five Families — the different ideological factions in the House GOP — and individual lawmakers.

Some members of the House Freedom Caucus are actively trying to search for an alternative to Johnson, quizzing each other about what candidate could win. But they don’t have a viable alternative that can get to 218.

Others in the hardline caucus have been wondering what concessions they could get from Johnson. But sources close to Johnson say he isn’t interested in “backroom deals,” including altering the rules package for the 119th Congress.

Remember — if there’s no speaker by Jan. 6, the House can’t certify Trump’s Electoral College victory. So it’s in Trump’s interest to get a speaker quickly and Johnson is the incumbent.

— Jake Sherman, Melanie Zanona and John Bresnahan

THE SENATE

Schumer dishes on 2025 and his advice for Thune

In just two days, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) will begin his tenure as Senate majority leader with a GOP trifecta, a prime opportunity for Republicans to enact President-elect Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also had a trifecta when he became majority leader in 2021. Working with the White House, Democrats passed party-line bills through the budget reconciliation process, meaning bypassing the filibuster. Republicans are now eyeing the same process.

But Schumer has some advice for Thune: A trifecta can also be an opportunity to pass landmark bipartisan legislation — with the Senate in the driver’s seat. This was the case in 2021 and 2022 when the bipartisan infrastructure and CHIPS bills became law, among other proposals.

“The majority leader can set the tone,” Schumer told us in an interview on New Year’s Eve. “And if the tone is, ‘We’re not gonna work with them’ — that was more [Mitch] McConnell’s tone when he was majority leader — it’ll be a much less successful two years for John as majority leader.”

Easier said than done. While Schumer declined to list specific issues he wants to see addressed, the New York Democrat and Thune have been heavily involved in crafting legislation on artificial intelligence, for example. Schumer has also tried to shepherd China-focused legislation through the chamber, though that’s proven difficult.

Still, Schumer is correct that Thune is about to wield immense power and could therefore choose to address big issues that aren’t considered “must-pass.”

“What makes it even more compelling was that in 2021 and 2022, all of this stuff originated in the Senate and was sent to the House,” Schumer said. “My advice to him is… work to see where we can work together. The greater imperative is, the House isn’t going to be able to do very much.”

This would still require buy-in from House GOP leaders, though they’ll be hampered by a majority that’s even smaller than the Senate’s. A lot of it could come down to Thune’s willingness to stand up to both House Republicans and Trump if they resist a big bipartisan Senate deal. Recall how House GOP leaders had no interest in passing the Kids Online Safety Act despite near-unanimous Senate approval. Or what happened to the bipartisan Senate immigration proposal.

The Thune era. Few can argue that the first two years of Schumer’s tenure as majority leader represented one of the most productive Congresses in decades. And it’s no surprise that Schumer would want that to be the standard.

But Schumer has also come under scrutiny from Republicans the last four years for not prioritizing floor time for must-pass agenda items, such as appropriations bills or the annual defense policy package.

The Appropriations and Armed Services panels completed their work with massive bipartisan margins last year. Yet just three of the 12 spending bills saw floor time. And the full Senate never considered the chamber’s version of the defense authorization bill, instead waiting until year’s end to rubber-stamp a compromise bicameral package.

Thune has promised to prioritize both for floor time and has laid out an aggressive Senate schedule for 2025 in order to accomplish it all. This means less time for bipartisan legislating.

Border security will be a priority focus in the early days of the 119th Congress, per a source familiar with the matter, as Republicans try to pass a non-tax reconciliation package in the first 100 days.

— Andrew Desiderio

PUNCH POWER MATRIX

Power Matrix year in review

We love how engaged our audience gets when reading our weekly Power Matrix rankings. Let’s take a look at who fared the best and the worst all year!

Big Four: First, let’s begin with our core focus: congressional leadership. Three of the Big Four — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — ended the year with a plus-three up/down differential.

It’s a reflection of how the Senate worked in a number of bipartisan ways — think the foreign aid supplemental, plus government funding battles — and how Jeffries largely kept his caucus intact while House Republicans bickered.

Speaker Mike Johnson ended the year with a neutral differential. But don’t let that fool you — Johnson was up and down a ton. Johnson had seven ups and downs each, a sign of the topsy-turvy year for the GOP, as his job was threatened but House Republicans held the majority on Election Day.

Presidential candidates: Admittedly, the Power Matrix isn’t a perfect barometer for political success. We had President-elect Donald Trump down 10 times last year and up seven times, giving him a negative differential. It’s a testament to how Trump faced scandal after scandal yet still won a convincing victory on Election Day.

Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, was up five times and down two times. Her positive differential is evidence of the summer boom, but it couldn’t sustain her into the crunch time of fall.

The biggest winner: Outgoing NRSC Chair Steve Daines takes the cake with an impressive differential of plus 6. Daines wasn’t down once all year as he steered Senate Republicans back into the majority, working early in primaries to install the best candidates to flip key seats.

The biggest loser: Departing Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) was down six times last year and didn’t get a single up. Good, the former House Freedom Caucus chair, lost his primary in an embarrassing setback for the leading conservative. Along the way, he made tons of enemies — sparring with Trump, House leadership, Democrats and everyone in between. Not great!

Thanks for following along with our Friday tradition — much more to come in 2025!

— Max Cohen

ETHICS WATCH

House Ethics drops cases against four members

In a final burst of horse trading for the 118th Congress, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was ending campaign finance-related investigations into Reps. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) and Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.).

But the Ethics panel also released a statement cautioning members against the personal use of campaign funds. And it issued new guidance spelling out what’s allowable — and perhaps more importantly, what’s not.

Here’s the key portion from the Ethics Committee’s statement:

In a 2020 referral to the Ethics Committee, the Office of Congressional Ethics — the independent ethics watchdog — found that there was “substantial reason to believe” that Bishop “converted campaign funds from Sanford Bishop for Congress to personal use, or Rep. Bishop’s campaign committee expended funds that were not attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.” Bishop’s office said the veteran lawmaker implemented new campaign reporting practices and personally paid back some expenses.

OCE also alleged Hunt and Jackson improperly used campaign funds to pay for a private club. Both lawmakers denied that they’d committed any ethics violations.

In 2021, OCE alleged that Mooney improperly received a trip to Aruba from a campaign vendor, as well as using official staff for campaign work and “personal errands.”

OCE also asserted Mooney “may have withheld, concealed, or otherwise falsified information during an OCE investigation.”

Mooney, who is retiring after losing a GOP primary to now Sen.-elect Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), insisted he had done nothing wrong and blamed Democrats for the probe.

— John Bresnahan

… AND THERE’S MORE

Downtown Download. Target has signed with Akin Gump to lobby on trade issues. Brian Pomper, the former chief international trade council for the Senate Finance Committee, is the lobbyist on the account.

AWS Public Policy has signed Alpine Group to lobby on “FY26 Appropriations, Issues and policymaking related to federal procurement and management of cloud computing technologies.”

The Campaign. Las Vegas Sands, the Adelson-owned casino giant, is running a digital ad in Texas supporting legalized gambling in the Lone Star State. The Adelsons have made lots of moves in recent years to open a casino in Texas.

Conservative Future Fund, a super PAC, has a new ad up for Jimmy Patronis, who is running to replace former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). The spot, predictably, touts President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement of Patronis, who is currently the CFO of the State of Florida.

— Jake Sherman

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