How Louisiana's Mike Johnson got Trump, Republicans big wins — and what he faces next

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WASHINGTON — Over the past eight months, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson overcame a tiny majority of often unruly Republicans to enact a batch of "if only" policies that conservatives have wanted for decades.

Scaling back Medicaid; closing borders and ramping up immigration enforcement; slashing regulation; lowering taxes — key parts of President Donald Trump's agenda are now law, in large part because of the quiet yet steely demeanor of the 53-year-old House leader from the Shreveport suburb of Benton.

But in the “what-have-you-done-lately” world of national politics, Johnson faces a whole new set of hurdles when Congress reconvenes in Washington on Tuesday. Foremost is passing a budget during the next 30 days to avoid shutting down federal government operations.

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Johnson wasn’t the narrow Republican majority’s first choice for speaker during the bitter intra-party battles of October 2023 — or second or even third choice. But he was ultimately chosen because, after a month of bickering, most of the disparate GOP factions liked him.

That ability to work with all sides of his caucus has helped Johnson weather some rough political seas.

Johnson hasn't done it alone. Fellow Louisianan Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, has a salesman's instinct for identifying a member's specific wants, fellow congressmen say, which has played a key role in closing deals. And Trump has frequently waded in personally to sway holdouts.

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“Speaker Johnson, you know, makes the impossible happen,” U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. “For him, it’s kind of what happens every single day.

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After the hiccups during Trump’s first administration and during the Biden years, Johnson said, “We are a well-oiled machine now.”

Republicans needed to be — their majorities in the House and Senate could be counted on one hand. Democrats almost universally opposed Trump’s vision and Republican ideological factions never tired of fighting among themselves.

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Using a method of patiently listening to opponents and slowly talking through nuanced differences — a trait first noticed by the Rev. Gene Mills when Johnson volunteered with the Louisiana Family Forum as an LSU student — he was able persuade just enough GOP members to back Trump’s legislative agenda without having to rely on Democratic input, which would require concessions that Trump’s MAGA base are loath to make.

The biggest victory was the nearly 1,000-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act that included much of Trump’s domestic agenda: continuing to build the border wall, increased removal of immigrants, more energy production, tax breaks, regulatory rollbacks and more.

The Big Beautiful Bill spends nearly $4 trillion and adds $3.7 trillion to the nation’s $37 trillion debt over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill added responsibilities, such as work requirements, more bureaucracy, and required the states to foot more of the costs for social safety programs.

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Johnson has often relied on Trump to come in at the end and persuade remaining GOP holdouts that it’s in their interest to go along.

For example, Trump came to Johnson’s rescue when a group of right-wingers sought to oust him from leadership in March 2024 and again in January to win over enough representatives to keep Johnson as speaker.

Johnson helped out Trump by sidetracking floor votes to publicly release federal investigation files on Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier who was accused of trafficking underaged girls, then sending the House home a day early for its monthlong recess from work on Capitol Hill.

Negotiating the political fallout over the "Epstein Files" is one of Johnson's present political tasks.

Widespread conspiracy theories sprang up after Epstein died in custody in August 2019 because he was friends with a number of high-profile men, including Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Trump and his allies stoked those theories by repeatedly contending the files were being “hidden” by the Democratic Biden administration.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had told Fox News in February that a list of Epstein’s clients was on her desk, later released an unsigned, two-page memo in July saying there was no client list. The memo launched anger among Trump’s most loyal followers, who demanded the release of the files, which the president declined to do.

To defuse that anger, Republicans in Congress are taking other steps.

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Johnson has talked about another massive reconciliation package, or reworking parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Debates over health care and paying college athletes are on the horizon, and Trump has talked about a sweeping crime package.

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