MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Republican lawmakers are getting down to business this week after reelecting Mike Johnson as House speaker on Friday. He promised to implement what President-elect Trump calls the America First agenda.
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MIKE JOHNSON: This is a powerful new coalition of our country. It's a coalition that insists that we purge the policies of America last, and we bury them in the graveyard of history's mistakes because it was a big mistake.
MARTIN: Johnson was elected speaker after two GOP holdouts changed their votes following a phone call with Trump. So what does this mean for Republicans as they prepare to take complete control of Washington? Let's ask Rina Shah. She is a Republican strategist based in Washington, D.C. Good morning.
RINA SHAH: Hello. Good morning.
MARTIN: First, let me just get your reaction to Johnson being elected on the very first ballot. Unlike his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, there had been talk of more holdouts, but it didn't happen. What do you make of it?
SHAH: Well, Speaker Johnson's reelection definitely didn't surprise me, but the fact that it all got done in that one ballot right in the nick of time, that was incredibly surprising. So it was supposed to be such a dramatic day, and it ended up not being so. But Speaker Johnson gets things done, so I wasn't surprised.
MARTIN: So what role did Trump play in Johnson's victory? I mean, do you think this victory was equally Trump's, or was it mainly Johnson's ability to persuade?
SHAH: Trump's outsized influence on this reelection is completely evident. It was Trump that made the call to those two holdouts and flipped them - quickly, too. So it shows that Trump now has the wind on his side, and Speaker Johnson really owes him because it did reflect a rare moment of GOP unity. But were it not for Trump's intervention, I think we would have continued to see that highlight in what has been a shift in party dynamics.
MARTIN: And how do we think that would play out going forward? What does that - does that mean that Johnson basically has to act as Trump's lieutenant in the House? I mean, he probably would, anyway. I mean, generally, the speaker of the House, if he's the same party - he or she is the same party as the president, generally, they sort of act in tandem. But does there mean something - is there some additional element to this that we should be looking at?
SHAH: The key phrase there, acting in tandem, I think we're going to see it highlighted in a very ahistorical way, much like we have with everything in the past few months. But I think, yes, with the Republican Party, it's no secret that there have been previous fractures. So despite this moment of unity, moving forward, Johnson has to navigate these divisions that are still very much there within his caucus, and he has to do it carefully to avoid the dysfunction coming to the surface again 'cause that dysfunction that we saw in prior sessions left people feeling like they didn't have and could not be trusting of Johnson to ensure what really is paramount here - its effective governance.
A lot of people within the MAGA faction of the Republican Party want a disruptor in their speaker as well, just like they want it in the president-elect. But by design, the House speaker cannot be. He has to be a great unifier. So this is the challenge for Johnson moving forward. How does he continue to do this? It's a very exhausting thing to have to do again and again, not just for his reelection but for major bills that require Democrats.
MARTIN: Well, to that end, in the final days of the last Congress, Johnson avoided a government shutdown by passing a spending bill with the help of some Democrats. Does he have enough leeway to do that again?
SHAH: I'm not so sure. See this - it's almost a game of pingpong here. That was Johnson's win back in December with getting that spending bill done, despite Trump and Musk coming in at the last minute trying to have their way. This time, it was Trump who won. But again, this is a moment where we have to realize with such a slim majority here, Johnson has no margin for error. And that makes it really crucial to maintain the party unity that's needed to pass legislation. I mean, there's a legislative agenda that is really bold and big, but it also includes really urgent issues like government funding, immigration reform, raising the debt ceiling, which is what Trump wanted back in December.
All of that requires bipartisan support amidst really what could be party fractures that could threaten to kill bills. So what I think is needed here is a sense that Americans understand how much Johnson is between a rock and a hard place. He can't be a transformative speaker much like the giants of years past, like a Newt Gingrich, so to speak. But he can be powerful because he does have command of the legislative process. He's demonstrated that.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, that America First agenda that Johnson referred to, which is, you know, Trump's agenda, what are the first priorities there? I mean, we've heard the president-elect say that he wants a big sort of omnibus bill to wrap up all of his major priorities at once. That doesn't seem - that seems kind of difficult to do. Would you just talk about that? How might that work? Could that work?
SHAH: We live in an era where, in Washington, it's become normal for Congress to govern by continuing resolution and for presidents to govern by executive order. I don't think any of that is normal, but we should take into consideration what the president-elect, Trump, has said so far. He says he's not advocating for a quote-unquote "omnibus bill," but instead, he's calling it a single comprehensive piece of legislation that advances his really key policy priorities. And those are border security, energy production, tax cuts, tariffs. I think it's a 50/50 on whether Congress will help pass it or not. And Speaker Johnson owes him one, so maybe it really could get done here, that one big, beautiful bill that Trump wants within his first hundred days of his presidency.
MARTIN: That is Rina Shah. She's a Republican strategist and the founder of Rilax Strategies. Rina Shah, thanks so much for joining us once again.
SHAH: Oh, thank you so much. Happy new year. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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