Update: Congressmen Keith Self and Ralph Norman switched their votes to Mike Johnson, giving him the 218 votes needed for a majority. Johnson is now officially Speaker of the House again.
BREAKING: Rep. Mike Johnson has officially secured the Speaker of the House position.
Reps. Keith Self and Ralph Norman switched their votes to Johnson, delivering the 218 votes needed to clinch the role.
Rep. Tim Burchett reflected on the moment, saying this about Johnson:… pic.twitter.com/FkGFJiMkrf
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) January 3, 2025
Original Story: Congressman Mike Johnson failed to win the Speaker of the House vote in the first round for the 119th Congress. Hakeem Jeffries ended up with 215 votes while Johnson had 216. Three voted for someone other than the two party leaders.
218 was required for a majority. A second round of voting is expected.
President-Elect Donald Trump weighed in and fully endorsed Johnson even after bashing the Continuing Resolution that Johnson had initially proposed. It was over 1500-pages and loaded with pork. Johnson pulled the CR and came back with a “lite” version, which initially didn’t pass. Democrats voted with most Republicans on the third version, which passed.
After coming under fire from conservatives in the House for siding with Democrats far too often, there were several who simply wouldn’t accept him as Speaker of the House. Thomas Massie has led the charge to stop him and voted for Tom Emmer.
I'm a "Hell No" on re-electing Mike Johnson to serve as Speaker of the House. I joined @FmrRepMattGaetz on @OANN to discuss my opposition.
President Trump's agenda needs to become law. Speaker Johnson has already demonstrated he is not the man who can get that done. pic.twitter.com/JfVoCSNqDy
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 3, 2025
Ralph Norman voted for Jim Jordan while Keith Self voted for Byron Donalds. Some of Johnson’s critics, including Chip Roy, held their vote until the end to see the count.
Every Democrat voted for Hakeem Jeffreys.
We will update this story as more information is known.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
