Mike Johnson’s plan for getting the House in line: Deploy Trump

Speaker Mike Johnson is eager to escape the chaos of a two-seat House majority. And he's leaning on Donald Trump for help.

During a February meeting with the former president at Mar-a-Lago, Johnson and his House GOP campaigns chief briefed Trump on several upcoming primary races, making the case that certain extreme candidates could blow the party’s chances in battleground districts with primaries this month.

Johnson’s requests included seeking the president’s help neutralizing the controversial J.R. Majewski, who has roiled the GOP primary for a must-win Ohio swing seat. The House GOP leaders also inquired if Trump could endorse other candidates, including Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), and updated him on their preferences in key upcoming primaries in California and North Carolina.

Trump was generally receptive to their requests, according to three people familiar with the meeting who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about it. Given Majewski’s strong MAGA lean and Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) support for Bost’s opponent, it was hardly a given. Overall, the meeting signaled that Johnson has developed a strategic partnership with the former president, who is again the de facto chief of the Republican Party.

Since that meeting, Majewski has indicated he might drop out. And the former president did endorse Bost a day later, though the Republican lawmaker says talks with Trump about an endorsement preceded the meeting with the speaker.

Johnson’s ability to both effectively manage the House and stay on as speaker is heavily linked to whether he can expand the GOP’s paltry majority. He has to protect well-liked incumbents like Bost and avoid candidates like Majewski who risk blowing Republicans’ chances in swing seats next fall.

While the two talk regularly, Johnson will also have to be careful to avoid alienating the ex-president, whose off-the-cuff style could limit the speaker's room to maneuver on matters of government spending, Ukraine aid and border security.

Though some argue the speaker’s interest in winning more seats serves Trump as well, assuming he wins in November.

“The former president — hopefully the next president — is smart enough to know that he needs people here to keep the majority to hand him exactly what he asks of them,” Bost said of Trump in an interview.

Johnson and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made a particularly strong case against Majewski in the Mar-a-Lago meeting, according to the three people, who said they argued he wasn’t a serious candidate and would not survive a general election.

One example they used: Majewski’s recent controversial remarks on a podcast where he argued that Special Olympics athletes with mental disabilities, no matter how they ultimately perform, are still “retarded."

“[They] talked about Ohio-9 and what a mess it was. And that Majewski can’t win,” said one of the people with knowledge of the closed-door discussion.

Majewski previously told POLITICO that he has been in contact with Trump’s team amid the push for him to drop out. And while Majewski considered the possibility of exiting the race against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the involvement of Trump and his team does not yet appear to have worked: Majewski decided against that idea, tweeting in a statement Wednesday morning that he will not “cower to corruption” of the establishment.

But people who have spoken to him say that Majewski has indicated that he may still drop out of the race despite his public remarks. A spokesperson for Majewski reiterated Thursday that he has no plans to.

Beyond Ohio, Johnson also made a case for Trump to help Republicans hold onto the seat occupied by Bost, who is facing a far-right primary challenger. The Illinois Republican has a March 19 primary against Darren Bailey, a failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate who has advocated for Chicago to be excised from the state and once compared an opponent to Satan.

“We talked about Bost. He has always been a Trump supporter, and he agreed to endorse him, but I haven't spoken to him in detail about a lot of the other races,” Johnson told POLITICO Thursday.

Bost, the first House committee chair to back Trump’s reelection bid, described himself as a “governing conservative.”

“I'm not somebody who wants to come here and blow it up,” he said.

Bost and Majewski won’t know their fates until their respective primaries in late March. But other contests are slated to begin in just a few days, winnowing large fields in California, North Carolina and Texas.

That includes the district of Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), who is facing a pro-Trump challenger. If that candidate boxes Valadao out of the jungle primary, which advances the top two vote-getters regardless of party, it would severely complicate the GOP’s ability to hold on to the Democratic-leaning seat.

And Trump could harbor a grudge against Valadao, one of the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach the ex-president over the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. The other eight were voted out or opted to retire after crossing their party’s leader.

Trump was briefed on that race and Valadao’s uncanny ability to hold a seat in tough, Biden-friendly territory, according to two of the people familiar with the meeting.

Right by that district, in the race for Kevin McCarthy’s old seat, Johnson expressed a preference for California state Assemblymember Vince Fong, according to two people familiar with the meeting, who was also McCarthy’s preferred successor. Trump endorsed him soon after.

A contested GOP primary for a North Carolina swing seat has also been a source of anxiety for party leaders. Johnson-aligned groups are backing retired Army Col. Laurie Buckhout and vociferously working to block the candidacy of Sandy Smith.

Smith, the 2022 nominee for the seat, has faced allegations of domestic abuse; her ex-husband claims she tried to run him over with a car. She denies the allegations.

The GOP leaders went over Smith’s liabilities with the former president. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the largest House GOP super PAC that has close ties to Johnson, has spent more than $200,000 on ads in that race on behalf of Buckhout.

While the NRCC remains neutral in open-seat GOP primaries, Johnson and other groups have still signaled their top picks. The Trump meeting simply took that practice a step further.

Which makes some in the House unhappy.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who backs Smith, took issue with the CLF spending in the race.

“I have great concerns about us playing in primaries, spending resources that ought to be reserved for the general election. These campaigns ought to rise and fall on their own merits,” Good said in an interview. “Resources are finite. And it's sad and unfortunate those resources always seemed to be directed against a conservative in the race.”