US politics: New speaker faces same problem of running deeply divided House

In her speech on Wednesday nominating Mike Johnson as the next speaker of the US House of Representatives, the chair of the Republican Party in the chamber, Elise Stefanik, described him as a “friend to all and an enemy to none”.

Others had a slightly different take, maintaining that the Louisiana congressman was the person with merely the fewest enemies in a fractious Republican Party in the House.

Three weeks after a rebellion by a group of hard-right members led to Kevin McCarthy being toppled, the House finally had a new speaker and could get back to work.

Exhaustion or perhaps embarrassment at weeks of open feuding and infighting led to Republicans falling into line behind the little-known Johnson, the party’s fourth nominee for the speaker’s post in recent weeks.

Locks, chains, diversions: How Columbia students seized Hamilton Hall

---

China’s Xi Jinping to begin Europe visit amid tensions over industrial policy and Ukraine war

---

English local elections show Labour’s poll lead is bang on

---

A week of high drama in Scottish politics ends with the SNP’s disparate camps joining forces

---

But the election of Johnson leaves open questions as to how he will manage critical issues in the coming weeks that have the potential to reopen the fundamental cracks between the different factions of the Republican Party.

In three weeks’ time the US government will run out of money unless a new budget is passed by Congress.

Despite the bloodletting within the Republican Party over the last three weeks, the mathematics of the House have not changed. Republicans have only a tiny majority and the party includes a large group who want to make steep cuts to government spending.

Any proposals brought before the House can face defeat if only a small number of Republicans refuse to back them.

The revolt against McCarthy can be traced back to his decision to agree a temporary spending deal with Democrats in the face of opposition from some on the right of his own party.

[ Trump ally Mike Johnson elected speaker of US House of Representatives ]

Johnson can expect a short honeymoon period in the speaker’s chair. But the same problems over how to pass spending Bills for next year – given the political and ideological differences – will likely reoccur in a few weeks’ time.

And then there is the thorny issue of funding for Israel and Ukraine.

Virtually everyone on Capitol Hill backs the provision of support to Israel. In the White House and in the Senate there is backing for a plan that would link this to funding for Ukraine in one overall Bill. However, there is a cohort of right-wing Republicans in the House who are adamantly opposed to giving any further aid to Kyiv.

It is likely that few Americans had much of an idea who Mike Johnson was before his nomination as speaker.

Even some senior politicians in his own party were vague as to who he was. Republican senator Susan Collins admitted to CNN that she planned to do a Google search to find out more about the man who is now second in the line of succession to the presidency, after vice-president Kamala Harris.

Democrats will undoubtedly seek to paint Johnson as both a political extremist and a key ally of former president Donald Trump.

[ New US House speaker Mike Johnson played leading role in bid to overturn 2020 election ]

Already critics have pointed out that he was centrally involved in securing support in Congress for a last-ditch legal move by conservative politicians in Texas to try to invalidate presidential election results in four states that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Trump, having played a key role in torpedoing the bid of the previous Republican nominee for speaker, Tom Emmer, on Tuesday, was much more supportive of Johnson. “My strong suggestion is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, and get it done, fast,” he urged on Wednesday.

In the House on Wednesday Democrats pointed out that Johnson had been the architect of the strategy to try to deny Biden’s certification as president. “Damn right,” a Republican politician shouted back across the floor.

Democrat House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries pointed to Johnson’s support for extreme abortion restrictions. “Mike Johnson, probably more so than almost any other member of the House Republican conference, wants to criminalise abortion care and impose a nationwide ban,” he said.