Trump allies blame Johnson after spending bill drama

Donald Trump can celebrate a win of sorts by flexing his muscles two days before a government shutdown deadline and sending Congress scrambling.

At the same time, the president-elect lost on his central demand — and that could complicate Mike Johnson’s future as Trump’s speaker.

After Congress passed a scaled down spending bill heading into the weekend, some on Trump’s team quickly took to X to publicly celebrate, pointing out that Trump successfully intervened to cut “unnecessary proposals and wasteful spending.” Musk declared that the public pressure campaign from conservatives “turned a bill that weighed pounds into a bill that weighed ounces.”

Their argument about cutting provisions was true. But the bill also abandoned Trump’s main demand for Congress to address the expiration of the debt ceiling before he gets into the Oval Office.

That fact has not been lost on Trump confidants and allies, some of whom are placing the blame squarely on Johnson: One person in Trump’s orbit described Johnson’s job security as being “on par with Brian Daboll at this point.” (Daboll coaches the hapless, 2-12 New York Giants).

“Every single Democrat voted with Johnson. If this is a win, what exactly does a loss look like?” the person added.

Trump himself, who notably has not yet issued a statement about the new bill’s passage, is frustrated that his one demand was not met — despite clear messages warning that lawmakers who opposed it would be primaried — one person who spoke with him on Friday told Semafor.

That person also said Trump was puzzled by the perception he supported the revamped bill without the debt limit. (Johnson said he thought Trump was “certainly happy” about the outcome.)

Johnson did bring a bill containing Trump’s demand to the floor on Thursday, where it failed to pass, and it seemed doomed to continue to fail if that provision remained in. It’s unclear whether Trump’s ire is directly squarely at Johnson, at the lawmakers who voted down that bill, or both.

“Johnson hid the scale of his betrayal in 1,500 pages of a spending orgy for Democrats,” Trump ally Steve Bannon said to Semafor. “He turned a simple clean CR exercise that everyone agreed on into a maelstrom of chaos. Incompetent, Deceitful, Unctuous.”

Rep. Cory Mills, a Trump ally from Florida, told reporters on Friday night that Johnson should be worried about his job. Rep. Andy Harris, meanwhile, issued a statement that same evening saying he was “now undecided on what House leadership should look like” next year.

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Johnson referred Semafor back to the Speaker’s remarks off the floor last night praising House passage of the American Relief Act by a wide bipartisan vote of 366-34.