The public spat between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has simmered after a phone call between her, Johnson, and President Donald Trump. But the New York congresswoman and gubernatorial hopeful has made it clear she believes Johnson has been an ineffective leader.
Johnson and Stefanik’s dayslong dispute over her proposed provision for the National Defense Authorization Act came to a close late Tuesday night after the New York Republican claimed the pair, along with Trump, had reached an agreement that her measure would be included in the annual defense bill.
Stefanik celebrated the resolution in a post on Wednesday, calling the phone call “productive.” However, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday night, Stefanik stated that Johnson is an ineffective leader who is losing control over the House GOP conference.
“He certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” the congresswoman said. “I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It’s that widespread.”
The frank criticism from a Republican toward their own party leader is rare, with a rebuke from a speaker’s own leadership team member even rarer. But it’s a sign that Johnson’s grip on the conference, and his ability to deliver wins despite a razor-thin margin, may be slipping.
In a post shortly after, Stefanik appeared to temper her remarks in the interview, saying that she “shared my views that House Republicans need to focus on delivering results to the American people.”
Johnson responded to Stefanik’s comments, saying on Wednesday afternoon, “I’m not sure to comment on what Elise is doing or what the rationale behind this is.”
When asked earlier about the conversation with Stefanik, Johnson reiterated that he was “never opposed” to the idea of adding Stefanik’s provision to the NDAA, which would require congressional notice if the FBI opens investigations into presidential and federal candidates. Stefanik had claimed Johnson was getting “rolled” by House Democrats and blocking it on purpose, which led to Tuesday’s ping-pong argument. He called it a “misunderstanding of the facts.”
“I was trying to work through the details and trying to make sure there was no national security implications or whatever. But Elise and I had a good conversation last night,” Johnson said, speaking to the conversation held with the president. “I told her I never understood what the disturbance was all about. I think she and I had a different set of facts that we were working on, and that’s what it was. So it should be resolved. I’m happy about that.”
Johnson acknowledged that his members are unhappy about many things, particularly his decision to keep members home during the government shutdown.
“People have their emotions, and all that, but — you can always find a few people who are disgruntled about things,” he added.
With the small margins, it “creates friction” sometimes, and he noted that “everybody has different ideas,” he said.
“As I say every day, I’m in the consensus-building business,” Johnson said. “I gotta get every Republican to ‘yes.’ There’s a wide range of opinions and priorities among our conference because people come from all across the country from very different kinds of districts, but at the end of the day, everybody’s got to get together. So they have.”
“As I say all the time, and I’ve said from the day that I got in leadership, I will often ask you to give up on your preferences, but I’ll never ask you to compromise your core principles,” he added. “And that’s something I’ve maintained.”
He disagreed that there is low morale among the GOP conference, noting that at Scalise’s Christmas party on Tuesday evening, “countless” members came up to him and said, “we’re doing this together, thank you for your leadership.”
The speaker’s office and the White House did not respond to requests for information on the details of the conversation.
Though this particular public infighting argument is resolved, Johnson’s problems are far from over. Members like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and Greg Steube (R-FL) have, in the past few weeks, vocally challenged the speaker and leadership on various decisions regarding bills.
Greene has been the loudest opponent, speaking out harshly against her own party for dragging its feet on the expiring healthcare credits and leaping at any chance to disparage the speaker over a lack of effort on leadership’s part to bring key legislation to the floor. The Georgia congresswoman has long been opposed to Johnson; however, she led an attempt to vacate him as speaker last year, which ultimately failed. As a result, her critiques have been viewed more as an isolated incident than a reflection of party infighting.
However, leadership’s handling of the Epstein files last month, as well as bills such as the SCORE Act and a ban on member stock trading, has increasingly made more and more GOP members willing to speak out against and even go against leadership in public standoffs.
On Tuesday, a handful of Republicans held up a floor vote on a procedural rule to advance a slate of bills. Included in the rule was the SCORE Act, which regulates pay for student athletes for name, image, and likeness used in the NCAA.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters after the delay on the SCORE Act that contentious floor votes are just a symptom of having a razor-thin majority with very different ideological caucuses struggling to make their voices heard. But he expected the bill to pass with bipartisan support.
The stock trading ban bill, which is likely to gain bipartisan support but is also receiving considerable bipartisan pushback, has put Johnson under a spotlight to see whether he’ll allow the bill to come forward. Or, more likely, a Republican rank-and-file member will be forced to use a discharge petition to bring it to the floor.
Luna and Johnson have had their own battles together. Earlier this year, Luna left the Freedom Caucus after a handful of members threatened to hold up floor proceedings if her bill on proxy voting for new parents came to the floor. Luna and Johnson eventually came to a deal on vote pairing, smoothing relations for the time being.
Johnson said he understood Luna’s drive to get a bill for stock trading on the floor, saying, “Sometimes, you know, she gets anxious and wants things quicker.” But, he said, “you need to let the process play out, and there’s a lot of good people working on this, and we’ll come to something that will satisfy everybody, but you gotta let that happen.”
Luna responded to this in a post to X, saying that she would use the term “frustrated.”
“Anxious is what happens when you get nervous. I’m not nervous. I’m pissed lol,” she said.
Luna took more of a high road than Stefanik, stating, “I like Mike. Mike is a good guy. I hope he backs me on this one.”
A senior House GOP aide told the Washington Examiner that while Johnson is dealing with some internal uproar, he’s got a better handle on the conference than past speakers.
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“Mike Johnson has more control over the conference than McCarthy, Ryan, or Boehner ever did,” the aide said. “He does not have total control like Pelosi did, but that can be chalked up to differences in party and core beliefs not differences in effectiveness.”
The aide added that Johnson’s enlisting of a president’s help was not possible under former President Joe Biden, “so I am not surprised Johnson using the President for help is a seemingly new tool.”
