Trump to Johnson: If You Want to Remain Speaker …

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… make better choices? Learn strategy? Look at the calendar before cutting deals that give away the store?

All of the above?

Donald Trump actually sounds as though he wants Johnson to survive his next Speaker vote, even after the missteps yesterday. Trump tells Fox News Digital that Johnson could win “easily” as long as he stops falling for Democrats’ banana-in-the-tailpipe tricks. Trump wants Biden’s budget settled while Biden’s on the hook for it, and he wants something else that might actually get bipartisan support:

President-elect Donald Trump told Fox News Digital that House Speaker Mike Johnson will “easily remain speaker” for the next Congress if he “acts decisively and tough” and eliminates “all of the traps being set by Democrats” in the spending package. 

Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with the president-elect Thursday morning, just hours after the bipartisan deal to avoid a partial government shutdown was killed. 

“Anybody that supports a bill that doesn’t take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible,” Trump told Fox News Digital. 

Vice President-elect JD Vance met with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Wednesday night. The two spoke about the potential continuing resolution for about an hour. Vance said the two had a “productive conversation,” and said he believes they will “be able to solve some problems here” and will continue “working on it.”

That’s actually a remarkable show of support for Johnson, under the circumstances. Trump has a habit of stirring the pot at the last minute on legislative negotiations, which creates its own problems, but this is a pickle mainly of Johnson’s own creation. The breadth of the giveaways in the supposed “continuing resolution” made it much more of an omnibus than anyone expected, even Johnson’s allies in the House GOP caucus. The more that emerged, the more embarrassing it got, to the point where it made a pretty good case that Johnson might not be the leader the caucus needs in the next session.

Trump and Vance really don’t need that leadership war to reignite, however, especially in the all-important first 100 days while Trump still has electoral momentum. He understands that he might have only the first two years to get his agenda accomplished, and a crippling leadership fight might prevent Trump from any success at all. House Republicans also have a big stake in success, given their barely-there majority and the consequences of failing to deliver when the midterms roll around. 

Instead, Trump will try to cut a deal that both parties can live with — and to do that, Trump has to give Democrats something they claim to want. Hence, Trump is going on both Fox and NBC to offer to end the “debt ceiling” fantasy once and for all:

In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Mr. Trump added. 

Trump suggested that the debt ceiling is a meaningless concept — and that no one knows for sure what would happen if it were to someday be breached — “a catastrophe, or meaningless” — and no one should want to find out. 

To be more accurate, Democrats have mainly wanted to end the debt ceiling when we have Democrat presidents, but at least they’re on record at some point for ending this edition of Kabuki theater. Republicans have resisted this consistently, convinced that it gives them leverage in budget negotiations despite winning nothing substantive over debt and deficits in the 20-plus years they’ve played chicken with it. 

On this point, Trump is entirely correct. Congress authorizes debt when it passes budgets that spend more than the federal government receives in revenue, a gap which has now spread out to $2 trillion a year or so. If the debt ceiling meant anything, Congress would act like it by passing budgets that keep debt within its limits. Instead, they just use it for another food fight while increasing deficit spending anyway, so how exactly is this a “limit” in any meaningful sense? Even Congress doesn’t act like it limits them in any way. If Congress really wants a debt limit, then they should budget accordingly; otherwise, a budget is a de facto authorization to borrow to get the funds appropriated. 

Had Johnson possessed any strategic sense, he would have pared down the additional baggage to get Trump the clean slate he clearly wanted in January. He could have offered up this essentially meaningless concession to get enough Democrats on board to pass a relatively clean CR/omnibus to clear the decks for the incoming administration. Johnson probably could have asked Trump what he actually wanted first, and if Johnson tried that, then he could have gotten Trump to go on record about it early so that his allies in the caucus could plan accordingly. 

Will Democrats accept a pared-down CR/omnibus that covers the rest of the year? Maybe or maybe not, but Trump wants that fight now rather than in March or June:

On the possibility of a shutdown, which would occur at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday if a funding deal isn’t reached, he said, “If there’s going to be a shutdown, we’re going to start it with a Democratic president” — suggesting that the fight playing out in Congress now is necessary to clear the decks before his administration begins in January. 

Exactly. A CR that puts Trump in the middle of a potential shutdown strategy by Democrats isn’t a very good deal for Republicans generally, not just for Trump. One might expect a House Speaker to realize that.