What an image tells us about Trump’s power in Congress

Shortly after Mike Johnson appeared to be two votes away from retaining the House speakership on Friday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump’s loyal ally and Republican congresswoman from Georgia, stood in the middle of the House chamber, speaking carefully about your mobile phone.

Although she covered the device with her hand, a skilled Reuters news agency photographer, Evelyn Hockstein, captured the name of the person on the other end of the conversation: incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

It was a tangible sign of the enormous interest that President-elect Donald Trump was showing in this vote. Trump had enthusiastically endorsed Johnson as president of the next session of Congress earlier this week, and a loss in the first round of voting would have been an embarrassment.

Behind the scenes, however, things were spinning furiously, creating a chaotic interlude in the House after Johnson initially appeared headed for at least a temporary defeat.

At one point, Johnson walked out of the chamber, followed by two of the men who had opposed him, Ralph Norman of North Carolina and Keith Self of Texas. Meanwhile, other House members and their families milled around and chatted, waiting to see what would happen next.

When Johnson finally returned, he was all smiles.

Trump himself had made a direct appeal to Norman and Self to support Johnson in a phone conversation, Republican sources told media outlets including Politico.

Because the vote had not been officially declared closed, Norman and Self were able to change their votes to the Louisianan, putting him at just the 218 mark needed to retain the speaker’s gavel. Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was the only Republican to hold out.

Both Norman and Self told reporters after the vote that they had spoken with Trump over the course of the day.

Norman said he spoke with Trump twice on Friday. The first during a several-minute phone call in which fellow Republican Nancy Mace handed him her phone and the president-elect was on the other end of the line.

The second time was a longer call, 15 minutes, that included Norman, Johnson and Self, he said, without confirming the exact timing.

“Trump was absolutely right when he told me that Mike is the only one who has the likability factor,” Norman said.

He went on to describe Trump as “enthusiastic” about the Republican trifecta in Washington: control of the House, the Senate and the presidency.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, I agree with you, I just hope Mike has the drive to do it,'” Norman said.

Self also said he spoke with Trump several times on Friday.

“We had a discussion about the whole process,” he said of his conversation with the president-elect.

In the end, embarrassment was avoided, even if Trump publicly seemed more focused on other things.

In the middle of the vote, as the names of House members were called in alphabetical order, the president-elect complained on social media about the possibility of American flags being at half-staff during his inauguration on September 20. January, part of the traditional grieving process following the death of former President Jimmy Carter.

Friday afternoon’s proceedings underscored how tenuous the Republican majority in the House of Representatives will be over the course of the coming months.

In addition to the three initial Republican votes against Johnson, five other hardline conservatives, who have opposed compromises Johnson has made with Democrats in the past, delayed casting their votes during the initial roll call vote. While they eventually relented, it was a very obvious shot across the speaker’s bow.

After the final vote, the House Freedom Caucus (some of whom were among those who temporarily held out) issued a statement explaining that they ultimately backed Johnson because of his support for Trump.

“We did this despite our sincere reservations about the speaker’s record over the past 15 months,” they wrote.

For now, the party has a 219-215 lead over Democrats, but that lead could be cut to two if Congresswomen Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida take the administration jobs Trump has offered them. It will be months until a special election determines their replacements.

That means Trump will have to keep all Republican members of the House of Representatives united if he wants to pass key pieces of his legislative agenda early in his presidency, including hardline immigration reforms, new tariffs and tax and spending cuts.

As Friday demonstrated, this could be an arduous task.

Additional reporting by Rachel Looker