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Republicans’ post-election sugar high of confidence is wearing off.
Familiar divisions within the party that deepened over two years of federal spending fights flared again this week as Congress tries to avert a government shutdown. Republicans struggled mightily to pass only three months of short-term funding, as some of Donald Trump’s closest allies brought down the agreement by the end of Wednesday, when the president-elect spoke out against it.
The bitterness that descended on the GOP over a spending deal intended to clear the decks for Trump is a stark reminder of how difficult the party will have it next year. House Speaker Mike Johnson will have to pass a new funding bill as soon as next month, while working on a massive party-line plan to implement Trump’s agenda and addressing the debt limit, all with a majority that’s even smaller than the one he currently has.
So although few of them will admit it out loud, Republicans are starting to realize that their full control of Congress will not be the unified romp they envisioned in the heady days after Trump’s victory.
“Those people who are bullish about us as a Republican trifecta dominating the political landscape, with no compromise whatsoever, I don’t think are being very realistic,” Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told Semafor.
Republicans have set an ambitious 2025 agenda, focused on at least one party-line bill to enact Trump’s campaign promises of stringent border security and to extend his 2017 tax cuts. But they’re still not on the same page about what order to tackle those priorities in, and Johnson’s readiness to rely on Democratic votes to pass this week’s short-term funding bill is sapping some GOP lawmakers’ faith in the speaker.
“I don’t expect anything new,” said Rep. Cory Mills, R-Texas. “We were told in the early portion, when he took over as speaker, that this will be the last [short-term spending deal with Democratic votes], and it will get back to regular order. So I don’t expect anything to change.”
The Louisiana Republican is unlikely to face a serious challenge when the House convenes to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, and Trump has endorsed him. Yet after Trump issued a late Wednesday statement alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance disagreeing with the bill Johnson negotiated, the speaker’s predicament began to look more dire.
Trump and Vance called for a government funding bill stripped of all add-ons that also addresses the imminent breach of the nation’s debt ceiling. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” they said.
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The current government funding fight is getting more stressful for Johnson as some of Trump’s closest allies weigh in to lobby Republican members against the deal. That includes the co-leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, but even Donald Trump Jr. came out against the spending agreement on Wednesday.
The result of those comments was pervasive uncertainty about whether criticism from Trump loyalists meant the president-elect himself opposed the bill. It got so intense that Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah — who twice voted to impeach Trump — openly urged him to clarify his stance to the party.
“What does President Trump want Republicans to do: vote for the [short-term deal] or shut down government? Absent direction, confusion reigns,” Romney posted on X.
The spending measure, which funds the government at current levels through mid-March, also includes unrelated provisions on health care, US investment in China and the redevelopment of the RFK Stadium site in Washington. Particularly frustrating to some conservatives, and at least one red-state Democrat, was the bill’s inclusion of the first congressional pay raise since 2009.
While Johnson had hoped to give lawmakers 72 hours to evaluate the funding bill before a House vote, the growing Republican rebellion against it could result in its consideration as soon as Wednesday. That sped-up timetable would give the Senate time that it may sorely need to avert a Friday shutdown.
The View From A Republican Optimist
Despite the disarray that took hold of the GOP this week, some Republican members are still seeing sunny skies ahead for 2025 after Trump takes office.
“I’m confident going into next year that we’re going to have a concerted team effort on the core issues that we ran on,” said Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., pointing to immigration, taxes and expanded domestic fossil-fuel production.
Kadia’s view
Everyone in the Republican Party is waiting for Trump — to offer an opinion on the funding bill, yes, but also to move into the White House.
Once they’re on the other side of Inauguration Day, most GOP lawmakers see their jobs as getting at least a little easier. The party will have a leader who outranks Johnson and can easily wield his influence over all of its fractious blocs.
“Who is going to be difficult with the agenda that the American public put President Trump in charge of? If you want to buck that system, that’s fine. Good luck with your primary in 2026,” Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, told Semafor about the prospects of internal clashes next year.
Republicans will stop short of crowning Trump the unofficial speaker, but the president-elect is a creature of the House (as opposed to Joe Biden, a reportedly self-proclaimed “Senate guy”). That can only mean good things for Johnson, who could use all the help he can get pulling his members together.
Even so, a majority as small as House Republicans will have next year means that an illness or two could suddenly leave Democrats with the upper hand. So a party that’s grown less interested in giving ground since 2016 is probably going to have to get used to at least a little bit of the “compromise” McCormick referred to.