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When lawmakers return from recess next week, they will face the daunting task of crafting a sweeping plan to turn the heart of President Trump's domestic agenda into law. It will be a crucial test for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who in his first 100 days this Congress faced an unrelenting wave of challenges. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales has more.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: House Speaker Mike Johnson has spent plenty of time on the knife's edge of political defeat. After a recent setback on a high-stakes vote, he had a message for his skeptics.
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MIKE JOHNSON: This House Republican majority has delivered over and over and over, and we will again. Don't doubt us. Just give us a little space to do our work and that's what we'll do.
GRISALES: In 2023, Johnson came into the role a virtual unknown to lead a razor-thin majority. He faced an unruly conference that continues to test his leadership. Earlier this month, fiscal hawks derailed the GOP budget plan, and that came days after Johnson shut down the House floor in a standoff with one Republican member.
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ANNA PAULINA LUNA: Leadership is not doing the right thing, and they are not being honest brokers, so I'm not backing down.
GRISALES: That's Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna in a fierce battle with Johnson to allow members who are new parents to vote by proxy. Former interim speaker Patrick McHenry says it's part and parcel for one of the toughest jobs in Washington.
PATRICK MCHENRY: Everything is public. There are no private conversations. Everything is out in the open.
GRISALES: That's especially true in President Trump's Washington. But more recently, Johnson has kept intraparty fights in-house. Days after Luna's battle with Johnson came to a head, they cut a private deal to record some absentee member votes in limited cases.
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LUNA: It's not what we initially had wanted, but it's a step forward in the right direction.
GRISALES: Johnson had found a way out of the thicket. Later that week, he reached a deal with the fiscally conservative House Freedom Caucus to support the blueprint for that GOP plan that's key to Trump's domestic agenda.
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JOHNSON: I told you not to doubt us - the media always does, the Democrats always do. But we get the job done. And we're really grateful to have had the big victory on the floor just now.
GRISALES: It marked the party's third fiscal legislative win since January, when the conference elected Johnson to his first full term as speaker. On one of those votes in March, there was a rare scene. House Freedom Caucus members approved a government stopgap measure, in some cases for the first time. Maryland Republican Andy Harris, who chairs the group, says Johnson has a keen ability to listen to factions of the conference known as the five families.
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ANDY HARRIS: We've demonstrated now for the third time that we can deliver on the president's agenda, so I think it bodes well for the future in a narrow majority.
GRISALES: That remains to be seen. In exchange for votes on the blueprint for the GOP spending plan, Harris' group was promised bigger savings that could potentially lead to Medicaid cuts in the final bill - a red line for moderate Republicans. Still, House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington argues Johnson has proven he can build the unlikeliest of coalitions.
JODEY ARRINGTON: I don't know anybody that could've traversed the minefield in the House to achieve the things that we've achieved.
GRISALES: Johnson also has a powerful ally in his corner with Trump, who played a key role in his reelection as speaker. Trump's also put the conference on notice of the wrath they'll face if they defy him. That's helped Johnson acquire political capital he'll need to get his party across the finish line on that ambitious Republican spending plan. Here's McHenry again.
MCHENRY: Moving big, complicated bills and winning votes enhances your power, not diminishes it, when you're speaker of the House.
GRISALES: Johnson's political fate could very well be tied to that multitrillion-dollar spending bill, which demands an improbable coalition of factions with dramatically different visions for the country's future.
Claudia Grisales, NPR News, the Capitol.
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