Republican Mike Johnson won reelection to the House speakership on a first ballot Friday, pushing past GOP hard-right holdouts and buoyed with a nod of support from President-elect Donald Trump. A collection of hardline Republicans convened in the back of the House chamber during a tense roll call on the first day of the new Congress, one by one declining to vote or choosing another lawmaker. The standoff sparked fresh turmoil signaling trouble ahead under unified GOP control of Washington. In the end, however, Johnson was able to flip two remaining holdouts who switched to support him, drawing applause from Republicans. As the most recent speaker, Johnson’s weak grip on the gavel threatens not only his own survival but President-elect Trump’s ambitious agenda of tax cuts and mass deportations as Republicans sweep to power. Congress has been here before, when it took Republicans nearly a week and 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker in 2023, a spectacle unseen in modern times. McCarthy was then dumped by his party, a historic first, but he was also part of a long list of GOP speakers chased to early exits. The stakes are higher this year as Trump prepares to return to the White House with the House and Senate in GOP control and promising to deliver big on a 100-day agenda.