Trump’s Cabinet decisions could be complicated by GOP bills in the House

CNN
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Many Republicans in the House of Representatives are privately fighting for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet. There’s one big problem: Speaker Mike Johnson can’t afford to lose his votes in the next Congress.

Republican leaders in Congress are signaling that Trump cannot poach more of their members after Trump on Monday named longtime loyalist New York Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.N. ambassador and asked Florida Rep. Mike Waltz to serve as his national security adviser act.

At least a dozen other House members — including Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers and Transportation Chairman Sam Graves — were discussed as additional candidates.

But even as the House GOP conference remains one of its strongest bases in Washington, senior Republicans acknowledge that the Trump team will not be able to poach more of these lawmakers without risking Johnson losing them Control of another narrow majority will be lost in 2025. CNN has not yet predicted control of the chamber.

“I think we have some really qualified people. But I don’t want to tactically reduce us to a one-to-two (seat) majority,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who is leaving Congress in January to become governor of North Dakota.

“We have a lot of talent. There are a lot of people who would be really, really good at it,” he said. But he added, referring to the speaker: “You have to give Mike some leeway to operate.”

Johnson himself has discussed the dilemma with Trump and said he “does not expect” any more members to leave. The speaker told reporters on Tuesday that he had been talking about it “several times a day for the last few days.”

“President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game,” Johnson said, adding that “every single vote counts,” citing unavoidable absences like serious injury or illness or even a delayed flight .

After Republicans flipped the Senate last week, the exact makeup of the new Congress is still unclear. Johnson and his leadership team are confident they will retain their slim majority in the House, but most Republicans wonder how big their lead will be – an outcome that could determine Trump’s ability to poach their ranks even further. And several Republicans are privately warning that the new Trump White House must be careful not to “cost us the majority by taking too many people with them,” according to a person close to the GOP leadership.

With the election of Stefanik, that would mean one less vote for Johnson at the beginning of 2025. And if Waltz accepts the role of national security adviser, that would reduce the number of Republicans even further. Both representatives represent safe Republican districts, but their seats would not be filled immediately.

The Trump transition team is keeping an eye on the slim House majority as the president-elect makes his decisions. They believe that if Trump wants more members in the House of Representatives, he can “stagger” the special elections so that the majority is not threatened all at once.

“Trump will choose who he wants and who he thinks is the best person for the role,” a Trump adviser said. “There are ways to get around the majority issue in the House if he decides certain members are best suited for the job.”

Within House Republicans, many lawmakers and senior aides have long assumed Stefanik would move to the Cabinet. She and Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former doctor, are considered the closest ties between Trump and the House Republicans.

Waltz, a combat-decorated Green Beret who served in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, is a Trump loyalist but was also a political adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

And there are several other Trump-aligned Republicans who are privately interested in joining his second Cabinet.

Florida alone sent about a quarter of the state’s congressional delegation. In addition to Waltz, Reps. Matt Gaetz, Brian Mast, Byron Donalds, Carlos Gimenez and Greg Steube were also mentioned as potential candidates. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Cory Mills have also privately expressed interest, according to a Florida Republican source.

The replacement process is a little easier in Florida, as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis could call a special election within weeks.

But at the same time, Johnson will want to retain as many seats as possible, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, adding that Trump’s move to name Stefanik as UN ambassador could impact the president-elect’s decision-making regarding adding others House Republicans to join his administration.

Ultimately, the transition process remains a “black box” for many of the House Democrats who say they are ready to serve if called upon.

There is another option: Trump could be poached from the list of House Republicans who are already planning to leave Congress in 2025. These include Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, who has been nominated to be Secretary of Transportation, and Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana has been discussed as an option to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Trump also has options in the Senate: CNN reported on Monday evening that he will likely choose Florida Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state. But even there, his team is limited by mathematics. Since CNN is not yet predicting races in Pennsylvania and Arizona, Republicans will have at least 52 seats in the chamber.

A half-dozen Republican senators have been discussed as possible candidates, including Sens. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Mike Lee of Utah. At least two, Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, have their names omitted.

CNN’s Alayna Treene and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.