Speaker race shows limits, lengths of Trump's influence

For Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), former President Donald Trump’s “Complete & Total Endorsement” was not enough to rally the House Republican conference behind his bid for the Speaker’s gavel.

But for Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, Trump’s public opposition was enough to effectively end his time as the party’s Speaker nominee hours after it began.

The scramble among House Republicans to elect a Speaker, which concluded Wednesday, illustrated both the depths and limits of Trump’s influence over the conference. 

Republican officials and strategists noted the past few weeks have been a reflection of how Trump’s influence is most likely to be felt given the narrow House majority. He is able to pressure a handful of close allies in heavily pro-Trump districts to take a position, but he is likely to struggle to exert much influence over a larger faction of the party, particularly GOP members representing districts President Biden carried in 2020.

“I think he definitely still has influence over the party, but it might just not be as strong as it once was,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Capitol Hill staffer and Trump White House official. "We saw him endorse Jordan, and Jordan didn’t ultimately get it. But Trump was able to in effect kill Emmer’s bid because he came out and blasted him."

The former president largely remained silent as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) led the push to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as Speaker.

He weighed in to endorse Jordan, one of his most loyal House allies, as the conference sought to coalesce around its choice to replace McCarthy. And while Jordan eventually got the nod as the party’s nominee for Speaker, the Ohio Republican failed to win enough support on the House floor as a block of GOP lawmakers steadfastly opposed him.

Trump found more success in opposing, rather than embracing, a Speaker candidate.

Trump allies were quick to bring out the knives against Emmer as he emerged as a Speaker candidate, with Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer and other far-right figures taking issue with his vote to certify the 2020 election and suggesting he did not align with the MAGA wing of the party.

Trump seemingly dealt a final blow to Emmer’s chances shortly after Emmer won a vote to become the nominee, deriding the congressman as a “RINO” and saying it would be a “tragic mistake” to support him. Emmer dropped out of the running hours later.

On Tuesday night, Trump posted a screenshot on Truth Social of what appeared to be text messages from Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), who briefly ran for Speaker. In the messages, Fleischmann relayed that all of the candidates remaining were “100 percent” Trump.

The end result was Wednesday’s election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), an under-the-radar choice with few enemies who is largely aligned with Trump on policy, most notably in his push to overturn the 2020 election results and false claims that the election was fraudulent.

In 2020, Johnson emerged as a key player in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election. Johnson, then the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, led an amicus brief backing a Texas lawsuit that sought to reverse the outcomes of the vote in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump, speaking to reporters at a Manhattan courthouse where he was attending a fraud trial for his business empire, praised Johnson as someone who's “going to be really spectacular, and maybe for many years to come.”

“We think Mike Johnson is going to do really well. He’s popular. He’s smart. He’s sharp. He’s going to do fantastic,” Trump said. “I think he’s going to be a fantastic Speaker.”

Johnson won the gavel with the full support of the Republican conference Tuesday, including lawmakers closely aligned with Trump.

When Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) spoke to nominate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for Speaker, he argued the process has been about Republicans finding someone who can appease the former president.

As if to underscore Trump’s grip on the party, several Republicans stood and applauded, with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) shouting “damn right” in agreement.

Trump’s critics viewed the former president’s dabbling in the Speaker race as a matter of drawing attention to himself and cautioned against overstating his influence.

“Who cares what he thinks anymore. He didn’t stand by McCarthy. His ‘total and complete’ endorsement did nothing for Jordan. He just loves to create dysfunction,” Chris Christie (R), a 2024 presidential candidate, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump is the clear front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024, leading in state and national polls by double digits. He still is the most influential figure in the party, and his words carry influence in ways that those of his 2024 rivals do not.

Still, some strategists downplayed the significance of Trump’s role in either contributing to or bringing an end to the chaos that engulfed the House GOP for the past three weeks.

“The House of Representatives is a club, and anyone who is not in that club by definition is not in that club. Whether it was ousting Kevin, electing Kevin … Donald Trump is not a part of this conversation,” said Doug Heye, a former Capitol Hill aide and GOP strategist. “That doesn’t say anything about him one way or another.”

“We’ve all given ourselves Trump on the brain and that anything that happens in American life is about Taylor Swift or Donald Trump,” Heye added. “That may not be true.”