Republican v Republican: can Trump play peacemaker within his own party?
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The president-elect’s intervention in Mike Johnson’s speakership win was a sign of his power over the party – but it was only the first test of many. Donald Trump to the rescue. With Mike Johnson’s bid for re-election as speaker of the House of Representatives teetering, the US president-elect interrupted a golf game to talk by phone to two Republican holdouts. In short order the art of the deal prevailed: Johnson won on the first ballot.
![[David Smith]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2023/05/25/David_Smith.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Friday’s intervention was a sign of Trump’s enduring power over the Republican party and his ability to bring its rebels to heel. It was, however, the first test of many for an incoming president better known for stoking division than playing peacemaker.
Republicans are taking full control of Washington for the first time since 2017. But the party remains an unwieldy coalition of conservatives, libertarians, moderates, populists and exhibitionists. It is already embroiled in a war or words over immigration between the tech billionaire Elon Musk and the Maga (“Make America great again”) grassroots.
“It’s got some pretty deep fissures in it,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “On the other hand, Trump is at this moment popular enough to probably soothe over some of those fissures as he did in the intervention that got Speaker Johnson over the top. He came in at the last minute and saved the day and so I expect that initially he’s going to be quite powerful in directing the party.”.
