Mike Johnson has a brutal 11 months ahead

IN THIS EDITION

The toughest stretch of Mike Johnson’s career

Trump mum as time runs short for Obamacare deal

It’s Election Day in Tennessee

Senate Republicans stand by the blue slip

House Budget Democrats demand Vought hearing

THE TOP

The toughest stretch of Mike Johnson’s career

Happy Tuesday morning.

Speaker Mike Johnson is about to enter the gauntlet.

The speaker is staring down an excruciatingly difficult stretch over the next 11 months that will test the Republican Conference’s patience, his own political savvy and President Donald Trump’s power within the GOP.

Johnson has made no secret about his exhaustion with the speakership, a job he was thrown into with almost no experience more than two years ago following the sudden ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

But the scary news for the 53-year-old Johnson is that the worst may be yet to come.

1) Voters in Tennessee’s 7th District go to the polls today to choose former Rep. Mark Green’s (R-Tenn.) successor. This is a district that Trump won by 22 points.

Special elections are, for lack of a better term, “special.” Turnout is unpredictable, even goofy. And truth be told, Republicans and Democrats both say that Matt Van Epps, the GOP candidate, is likely to win. Van Epps is running against Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn. It’s quite the statement that she’s even competitive in this ruby-red district.

But if Van Epps wins by roughly five points — as many expect — there will be serious questions about House Republicans’ political standing less than one year before the midterms.

2) Enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits expire at the end of the month. Most House Republicans don’t want to extend these subsidies. But Johnson’s leadership team understands that there are vulnerable House GOP lawmakers who badly want a vote on something to combat the idea that Republicans are indifferent to massive spikes in health care premiums.

Here’s the rub, however — Hill Republicans have no health care plan. Even if they come up with a proposal — boosting health savings accounts and broadening insurance pools, for instance — it won’t be nearly as broad as Obamacare or impact premiums in the short term. There’s no guarantee the House can pass it, or the Senate will take it up.

Time is running short. The House is slated to consider the must-pass annual defense authorization bill next week. And then members have just one week left in session before the December recess.

“We’re building consensus and that’s what’s going to dictate when we bring it to the floor,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told us Monday evening.

3) There are just 59 days until government funding expires once again. We’re very careful about predicting government shutdowns. But it will take a lot for the House and Senate to pass nine spending bills between now and Jan. 30.

The House has just 24 days in session between now and then. House GOP leaders don’t plan to take up a single spending bill before the new year.

4) GOP leaders seem to be a bit blind to the fact that there are a lot of Republicans who are plainly unhappy at the moment. We’ve heard from a bunch of rank-and-file members that they’re considering retirement or resigning.

Some of this is unfair — Johnson has a razor-thin majority, an unpredictable president to whom he’s tied and a restive membership that always wants more.

Yet despite the niceties in GOP conference meetings, there are a lot of bruised egos and hard feelings in the party right now.

Just on Monday, Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy (who is running for another office) railed against the SCORE Act — landmark collegiate athletics legislation — in the House Rules Committee, which Johnson controls.

And Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of Johnson’s own leadership team, threatened to work to defeat the NDAA because she thinks the speaker is getting “rolled” by Democrats.

5) Republicans and Democrats are joining forces to raise serious questions about the Trump administration’s conduct in targeting alleged drug smugglers or what his plans are for dealing with Venezuela. This could turn into a major flashpoint between Congress and Trump depending on how the crisis unfolds.

6) What’s Republicans’ 2026 agenda? If you ask the GOP leadership, they seem to have no idea. Affordability is the top political issue. But how House Republicans plan to address that remains unclear.

What if the Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s tariffs? How will Congress respond? You can pretty much guarantee that the House Republican Conference will have a tough time voting to reinstate the president’s tariff regime if they are forced to do so.

7) Even if Van Epps wins this evening, by April, the House GOP majority will be balancing on the head of a pin. Once Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) retires next year and Democrats pick up deep blue seats in Texas and New Jersey, Republicans will have 219 seats to 215 Democratic seats. That’s a one-vote margin (bills fail on a tie.)

If anyone resigns or is otherwise forced from office, it’s not far-fetched to see House Republicans losing their majority this Congress. We’re not saying it will happen, but it could.

8) Republicans picking up seats in redistricting is no longer a sure thing. The Indiana Senate could easily reject a new map that gives Republicans all nine House seats in the Hoosier State. The Supreme Court is set to rule on Texas’ redraw in the coming days. House Republicans may net a few seats when it’s all said and done, but it will no longer be the massive boon that Trump and GOP leaders once hoped.

Members are retiring at a quick clip and senior House Republican officials say there are more to come. Between now and next fall, it’s up to House GOP leaders to convince donors that they’re still a good investment.

– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

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HEALTH CARE

Trump mum as time runs short for Obamacare deal

The Senate is barreling toward a health care vote next week that will amount to little more than a partisan messaging exercise — and a year-end subsidy cliff that will prompt massive premium hikes for millions of Americans.

Absent a major shift, senators are set to vote on a Democratic proposal to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies for a number of years, and potentially a “side-by-side” but yet-undefined GOP alternative. Neither of these proposals will get 60 votes.

Some Senators in both parties agree that the only path to an extension of some sort relies on heavy involvement from President Donald Trump, who was set to propose a pared-back short-term subsidy extension last week before pulling the plug. Trump, they argue, is more than capable of pushing enough Republicans to accept a compromise that stabilizes health care costs while preventing big GOP electoral losses next November.

“I don’t think anything will pass without the president’s approval,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who’s been part of informal bipartisan negotiations on an extension. “There’s lots of ideas out there. Let’s see if we can’t put something together and take it to him.”

“It would help if [Trump] just said to the Republicans: ‘Make a deal,’” added Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats. “If it doesn’t happen, Republicans are going to own massive premium increases. I don’t know why they would want to do that.”

But time is running short, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is upping the pressure on negotiators to come to an agreement.

At the same time, Thune is publicly casting doubt on the idea that a bipartisan proposal can come together in time for a vote by then, which he committed to as part of the shutdown-ending deal. Without any deal, that vote turns into a partisan exercise.

“We’ll see if, by the time that vote happens, there’s a path forward on resolving this in a way that’s bipartisan or whether these end up being what would probably be ‘show’ votes or political-type votes,” Thune added.

Democrats are set to revert back to their original demand of a clean Obamacare extension. It’s a policy position that unites Democrats and allows them to highlight GOP divisions.

Trump’s refusal to engage on the matter also allows Democrats to shelve their tactical disagreements over whether to accept a watered-down extension that may help Republicans politically.

The House. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is huddling with the Republican Governance Group to talk health care options today.

RG2, as it’s known in the Capitol, is a key faction in the House that includes many of the GOP moderates backing an Obamacare subsidy extension.

These moderates are in an extremely difficult political spot. Many of the House Republicans seeking an Obamacare patch are facing uphill reelection fights and are concerned about spiking health care costs. But there’s still heavy resistance to addressing the cliff inside the House GOP Conference.

Despite signs of trouble for the Obamacare efforts, GOP moderates insist they can still find a path to a deal.

“We’re having our own kind of internal House discussions,” Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) said. “I would love to hear what [the White House’s] thoughts are too but in the meantime, us members have been talking on a bipartisan basis.”

After the White House seemed to drop its extension proposal, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said the episode still led him to believe “there’s a willingness there to compromise.”

— Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss and Ally Mutnick

SOMETHING SPECIAL

It’s Election Day in Tennessee

A deep-red Tennessee district will host the last special election of 2025 today.

This race shouldn’t be competitive. Yet it has drawn millions of dollars in spending from both parties. A Democratic upset is unlikely, but House Republicans are desperate to juice the margins and allay fears that they’re heading toward defeat next November.

The candidates. GOP Army veteran Matt Van Epps and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn. The seat is vacant because former Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) resigned from Congress earlier this year.

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET. The district includes a slice of Nashville and rural areas spanning from Kentucky to Alabama. President Donald Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024, as did Green. But public and private surveys have shown the race to be much tighter.

Republicans are bracing for the morale hit that comes with a closer-than-expected special election. The timing, coming just days after Thanksgiving, also has them concerned; turnout could be extra hard to predict.

The GOP does have far more persuadable voters. So Democrats can only prevail if enough Republicans stay home.

The messaging. Republicans recognized the danger and brought out the cavalry. Trump backed Van Epps and held a virtual rally for him. Speaker Mike Johnson traveled to the district to campaign for Van Epps.

Van Epps and a constellation of outside groups spent $3.5 million on ads, compared to Democrats’ $2.4 million. Those ads have given a preview of midterm messaging.

Republican ads have cast Behn as a “radical” liberal who brags about attacking ICE agents and wants to offer “sex change operations for minors.”

Meanwhile, Behn has criticized House Republicans’ cuts to rural health care and their hesitance to vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Behn has tried to keep the focus on affordability. But Republicans have pointed to some of her campaign surrogates to portray her as “too liberal” for the red district.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) joined a virtual rally on Monday and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) held a town hall with Behn last month. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also spoke at a GOTV event.

– Ally Mutnick

NOMINATION NATION

Senate Republicans stand by the blue slip

The Senate’s adherence to the blue slip tradition is standing in the way of Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan’s nominations. But Senate Republicans aren’t budging.

Republican senators are standing by the longstanding practice of allowing senators to have veto power on home-state nominees, even amid twin setbacks for President Donald Trump’s U.S. attorney picks.

Over the past two weeks, courts have ruled that Halligan, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Habba, acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, were improperly nominated to their roles. And in the Senate, both nominees lacked sign-off from their Democratic home state senators.

For now, Senate Republicans are standing by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and his defense of the blue slip. While the practice is benefiting blue-state Democrats at this time, Republicans note that it’s helped them under Democratic administrations.

“It’s proved to be very useful in previous administrations by Republicans when we were in the minority,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

“I support Sen. Grassley and his support of the blue slip,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) added. “I’d like to see the preservation of it.”

It’s a rare instance of daylight between Trump and Senate Republicans. The president has railed against the tradition and sees it as an obstacle to getting his nominees approved.

Grassley’s team alluded to the practice when commenting on the news that a federal appeals court invalidated Habba’s nomination.

“U.S. Attorney and district judge nominees without blue slips don’t have the votes to get through committee or pass on the Senate floor,” Grassley spokesperson Clare Slattery said in a statement.

— Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

House Budget Democrats demand Vought hearing

News: Democrats on the House Budget Committee are demanding that OMB Director Russ Vought testify this year.

Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) and committee Democrats say in a new letter to Vought that administrations of both parties have, for five decades, consistently sent OMB directors to appear before the committee. Democrats point to the panel’s oversight role over OMB to justify this demand.

“Rather than dodge this Committee, we ask that you come forward in the light of day and give the American people answers about the impact of your policies — including higher costs and a worsening unemployment rate,” Democrats write.

The letter also cites House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington’s (R-Texas) recent comments agreeing that the OMB director should regularly testify. Arrington told us that he was disappointed with how Democrats invoked his comments in the letter.

Arrington added that Vought has committed to testifying in early 2026.

“[Vought] is committed,” Arrington said. “He will be here to present the president’s budget early in the new year.”

Democrats, though, say in the letter that Vought would break precedent if he doesn’t appear by the end of the year. There are only three weeks before the House is scheduled to leave town.

— Laura Weiss

MOMENTS

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