Mike Johnson attends Super Bowl with Trump as budget bill puts him in an uncomfortably familiar position
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was by the side of Donald Trump on Sunday as the two, along with Senate Republican whip John Barrasso, attended the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Johnson’s attendance was far from a surprise given his closeness to the president. The Speaker previously attended a UFC event with Trump last year.
But his appearance alongside the president is given special meaning this weekend as Johnson is now facing one of his toughest political battles as Speaker — a bid to craft budget legislation that will satisfy all sides of the Republican Party, from the president to the disparate groups that make up the House and Senate Republican caucuses.
Johnson is coming up against a government funding deadline in mid-March, while also seeking to craft a long-term funding bill that can unify his caucus in the House and pass the chamber without Democratic votes. It’s a difficult prospect as just a three-vote margin splits the two parties in the lower chamber; Johnson cannot afford any defections or absences, given the unlikely prospect of Democrats voting for the GOP’s spending cuts.
The Speaker could push for a continuing resolution to fund the government past the March deadline, then push forward with a plan to rely solely on Republican votes for the party’s budget plan — or simply seek to push something through before that March 14 funding drop-off. Neither option looks particularly easy, with Democrats stating that the GOP should not assume that the opposition party would bail out the House Republican caucus and supply Democratic votes to make up for Republican budget hawks who refuse to support Johnson’s plan.
In January, he said that Republicans were hoping for final passage of the bill in April.
Johnson, like Kevin McCarthy before him, cut deals with Democrats to avert shutdowns throughout 2024, despite holding control over the lower chamber. A handful of Republicans have stated their opposition to what they viewed as insufficient efforts by leadership to cut spending, while others have opposed the continuing resolution process on principle.
Still, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and others have taken issue with the assertion from Johnson on Friday that the Democrats had abandoned negotiations entirely.
“Leader Jeffries and others seem to be trying to set up some sort of government shutdown,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol, adding:“We were negotiating in good faith and trying to get the top-line number, but so far as I know, they’ve been sort of unresponsive the last two days or so.”
Jeffries and Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro said that Democrats had sent a new offer to Republicans for their party’s support for a bill to fund the government within the past few days.
Jim McGovern, the top-ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, said: ““First of all, [Johnson]’s full of s‑‑‑. He’s a liar. And he’s a total shill for Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”
“So he can blame anybody he wants … but we’re not walking away from the table,” the congressman said. “They’re not interested in hearing from us at this particular point. Maybe they will be in March.”
This weekend Johnson said that the GOP’s budget bill, designed to be passed through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process, was still days away from being unveiled. He cautioned that the slim margin in his chamber necessitated more work on the legislation. He also seemed to be optimistic about Republicans meeting the March 14 funding deadline, even with the added challenge of cramming all of the GOP’s budget reform priorities into one piece of legislation.
“We were going to do a budget committee markup next week. We might push it a little bit further because the details really matter,” Johnson said on Fox News Sunday.
