Mike Johnson is still fighting for his job because Donald Trump no longer has the juice

After a brief hiatus for the holidays, the circus is back in Washington, D.C., and the high-wire act of Speaker Mike Johnson and the Flying Republicans will attempt a dangerous new stunt. By the time you read this, it may be all over but the shouting or we may have already embarked on yet another House GOP spectacle as they struggle to cobble together a majority to elect someone to the most powerful job in the House of Representatives — again.

After his near faceplant before the break, in which Johnson had struggled to keep the government from shutting down (as it probably would have if it weren't for the fact that it was just days before Christmas), the speaker is again in a very precarious position. Contrary to Republican braying about a mandate, the GOP actually lost a seat in the House last November. So with the resignation of Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., Johnson can only lose two votes or he will lose the speakership. He's already lost one vote, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who told the Wall St. Journal, “If they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no Fs to give now." He's always been an eccentric libertarian and an unreliable team player so no one should expect him to change his mind.

There are a handful of others who have not committed one way or the other so the vote today could have the same drama we witnessed during the long vote for former California Congressman Kevin McCarthy.

Johnson himself faced a similar challenge last spring. You may recall that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a Motion to Vacate the Chair in May over Johnson's support for Ukraine funding. The motion was tabled with the help of Democrats but 11 Republicans voted against it, some of whom are among those who have not committed to vote for Johnson this time. Democrats are not going to save him this time so it would only take one of the original 11 to decide to stick with their "principles" and deny him the speakership and throw the new Congress into instance chaos.

If I had to guess, I'd bet he'll squeak out a victory. President-elect Donald Trump has tepidly thrown his weight behind Johnson, telling reporters at his New Year's bash at Mar-a-Lago that "he's the one that can win right now," more or less acknowledging that there is no plan B. If Johnson fails, it's one more sign that Donald Trump just doesn't have the juice anymore. And if he wins, all it means is that Trump and Johnson managed to eke out a temporary victory and avoid the doomsday scenarios of a protracted fight leading into Jan. 6 and revealing an inability to certify the presidential election.

What this shows is that for all of the GOP's swaggering braggadocio about their alleged landslide, Trump's win was razor thin in Congress, indicating once more that he has no coattails. Yes, he threatens and intimidates "RINOs" and others who defy him, and he likes to endorse MAGA primary opponents against them but his record of success in those cases is spotty at best.

Trump's impending lame duck status was illustrated pretty clearly in the aforementioned pre-holiday crisis when he was more or less out of the loop while his best pal, Elon Musk, put the kibosh on the deal that Johnson had negotiated with the Democrats and all hell broke loose. He came in late to the game and backed Musk, adding a demand that they eliminate or extend the debt limit so he wouldn't have to deal with it — but they didn't give it to him. The Freedom Caucus deficit hawks love their debt limit more than they love Trump.

Trump was so upset by this that he blasted off a Truth Social post on Dec. 29, insanely demanding that Mike Johnson call the House back in session immediately to extend it:

That was just five days ago and no one paid any attention to it because it was a ridiculous tantrum that just proved once again that he is not only addled but is politically much weaker than people commonly believe.

So regardless of how the speaker vote comes out today, the Republicans are going to have a hell of a time passing any legislation. Unless the Democrats completely lose their minds (which is possible), they are not going to help them so the Republicans are on their own.

Consider that in the first 100 days, Senate Republicans will have to try to get Trump's unqualified, unfit Cabinet nominees across the finish line. The betting has it that they will eventually get there, but it does not look as though it's going to be a slam dunk which means they won't be able to do much of anything else for a while.

Then both the House and Senate want to take a huge border security, defense and energy package through reconciliation but unless it's offset by spending cuts the usual suspects in the House aren't going to play along, especially since they are hoping to extend the Trump tax cuts and create new ones in yet another reconciliation bill. (They may try to combine them but that may make everything even worse.) Meanwhile, you have Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and their "DOGE" commission getting all those fiscal hawks in the House and Senate all hot and bothered with crazy plans to slash spending on programs that Americans rely upon.

Oh, and there's that pesky debt ceiling coming up within a couple of months and a budget to be negotiated for the next year too. They have a whole lot on their plate with a tiny margin and an aging lame duck leader who seems to be more interested in playing golf than being a full-time president.

The presidency has a tremendous amount of power of its own, of course, and Trump is staffing his White House and Cabinet with people who are willing to carry out the extremist agenda whether he's engaged or not. But many of their plans have yet to be tested in the courts which takes time and nothing can get done without money, which is still in the hands of a Congress that has trouble even electing a speaker without a huge amount of drama. Gridlock and chaos may be our best hope of surviving this mess with as little damage as possible.