While the high-stakes battle for House leadership is over, House Speaker Mike Johnson's politically fraught year has only just begun.
Winning the House speaker's gavel was no easy feat given that Johnson, R-La., did not have the support of Democrats and could only lose one fellow Republican, thanks to the GOP's slim majority in the House.
All House Republicans except Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted for Johnson on Friday afternoon. Two Republican lawmakers who initially voted for someone other than Johnson, Reps. Keith Self, R-Texas, and Ralph Norman, R-S.D., were eventually persuaded to change their votes after speaking with Johnson and President-elect Trump.
Johnson will have to navigate a similarly slim margin over the next few months as he helps implement what President-elect Donald Trump has promised he will be very active in the first 100 days of his new administration.
Republicans provide details of closed-door meetings with Dougie Musk and Ramaswamy
House Speaker Mike Johnson is photographed in front of the US Capitol. (Getty Images/AP)
“There are a lot of expectations and potential pitfalls,” Mark Short, who served as director of legislative affairs during Trump's first administration, told Fox News Digital in an interview late last month.
The first half of 2025 alone is expected to witness at least three separate financial battles.
Meanwhile, Johnson is set to lose two House Republicans — Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida. Both members will join the Trump administration at the end of this month.
That would shrink the GOP's majority in the House to just 217 seats, compared to Democrats' 215, meaning Republicans would need to vote simultaneously to pass any bills on party-line voting.
A special election to succeed Waltz and retiring Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, is scheduled for April. No date has yet been set for an election to replace Stefanik.
Meanwhile, Republicans are seeking to pass two massive conservative policies and spending reform through the process It's called “reconciliation.” Which lowers the Senate approval threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority for some budget issues.
Both Republicans and Democrats have tried to use reconciliation to pass major fiscal policy changes that the other side typically opposes, meaning it requires extraordinary levels of intraparty cooperation in both the House and Senate.
Pictured are President-elect Donald Trump's choices for his next National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz (left), and the next US Ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik (right).
“There are huge expectations about budget reconciliation, and that's really difficult, even when you have wide margins. I think you're going to do it twice a year with those margins. I think that's a very high expectation and it seems unreasonable,” Short told Fox News Digital.
“Add to that another financing bill in three months, plus the debt ceiling battle.”
Along with the reconciliation bills – which are unlikely to get much, if any, Democratic support – Republicans will also have to contend with their own government funding deadline. It has just been postponed to March 14th.
Danielle Binney will be selected to receive the Congressional Gold Medal by a House GOP lawmaker
Lawmakers in the House and Senate passed a short-term extension of government funding levels for fiscal year 2024 in December to give negotiators more time to wrap up the rest of fiscal year 2025.
Congress will risk plunging the government into a partial shutdown if the House and Senate do not approve another funding extension or set new priorities for the remainder of fiscal year 2025 by then.
The next state funding deadline will come at the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
But that's not all Johnson will have to focus on during those months.
President-elect Donald Trump looks on during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 22, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
A Bipartisan agreement It was signed in 2023 and suspended the US debt ceiling until January 2025 – after which the Treasury would be forced to take “extraordinary measures” to avoid a national credit deficit.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The debt limit refers to the amount of debt the U.S. government can accumulate while paying expenses it has already committed. As of Christmas Eve, National debt — which measures what the United States owes to its creditors — fell to $36,161,621,015,445.57, according to the latest figures published by the Treasury Department.
Raising the debt limit is also a traditionally fraught political battle, with both Republicans and Democrats seeking whatever leverage they can to tie their political goals to the negotiations.
A recent model released by the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) predicts that the Treasury Department's “extraordinary measures” will continue in the United States until mid-June or earlier, giving Congress a potential six months to act.
