Republican Mike Johnson was returned as speaker of the US House of Representatives on Friday with the crucial backing of incoming president Donald Trump, ending a bitter standoff that threatened to see the 2025 session opening in chaos.

Johnson had angered backbenchers by working with Democrats to pass legislation, and his victory was secured only after tense backroom negotiations that saw more than a dozen rank-and-file Republicans voice doubts over his leadership.

A chaotic 2023-25 session was marked by conservative anger in particular over the Louisiana lawmaker’s handling of spending negotiations, as fiscal hawks lined up to accuse him of being soft on the deficit.

In the end there were only three Republican holdouts as voting began — with all 215 Democrats backing their leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Congressional media outlet Punchbowl News reported that Johnson was able to keep his speakership ambitions alive after Trump intervened personally to speak to two of the rebels by phone — just before they changed their votes.

“After four years of high inflation, we have a big agenda. We have a lot to do, and we can do it in a bipartisan fashion,” Johnson said as he pledged to help Trump transform the economy.

“We can fight high inflation, and we must. We’ll give relief to Americans, and we’ll extend the Trump tax cuts… We’re going to drastically cut back the size and scope of government, we’re going to return the power back to the people.”

With the exception of Kentucky conservative hardliner Thomas Massie, the opposition to Johnson always looked soft, and he had spent much of the week working the phones and holding meetings with the conservatives who had opposed his candidacy.

– ‘Greater than ever’ –

“Mike will be a Great Speaker, and our Country will be the beneficiary. The People of America have waited four years for Common Sense, Strength, and Leadership,” the president-elect posted on social media.

“America will be greater than ever before!”

Defeat for Johnson would have marked another embarrassment for Trump, who was shown the limits of his sway over House Republicans after they rebuffed his demands for a suspension of the country’s borrowing limit in December.

Trump’s looming presidential inauguration had also raised the stakes of the speakership fight, since the House would not have been able to certify the 78-year-old Republican’s victory, set for Monday, without electing a leader.

The speaker wields key influence in Washington by presiding over House business and is second in line to the presidency, after the vice president.

But Johnson has been weakened by the standoff with his party’s hard-liners, who demonstrated the leverage they hold given the Republicans’ wafer-thin majority in the lower house of Congress.

With the vote looking set to go down to the wire, former Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is 84 and recently suffered a fractured hip, turned up to cast her ballot, wearing flat heels for possibly the first time in her career.

House Republicans are scheduled to gather for a retreat in Washington on Saturday to talk about their plans for 2025, and the leadership meets again on Sunday in Baltimore.

But the first order of business will be to consider a controversial change to its rules package — which governs daily operations — that would allow only Republicans to force a vote on removing the speaker.

Democrats argue that the reform would leave Johnson answerable only to his own side rather than the whole chamber. In the last Congress, any single House member could introduce a “motion to vacate” the speaker’s chair.

The 36-page rules package for the 119th Congress raises the threshold to nine co-sponsors from the majority party.

AFP

United States President-elect, Donald Trump, has described as a ‘very big mistake’ moves by the United Kingdom to end oil drilling in the North Sea.

Trump disclosed this in a statement posted on his Truth Social platform.

He also made clear his opposition to offshore wind farms — something the UK’s Labour government strongly supports.

He said, “The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of windmills!”

The incoming US President was commenting on an article in which US oil giant Apache said it was quitting the North Sea because of the windfall tax on its profits.

This comes as John Christmann, chief executive of the company’s parent firm, APA, also said UK regulators had issued new rules that will require “substantial new emissions control investments” on facilities operating in the North Sea beyond 2029.

He said, “After six months of evaluation, we have concluded that the investment required to comply with these regulations… coupled with the onerous financial impact of the [windfall tax] makes production of hydrocarbons beyond the year 2029 uneconomic.”

The implication is that Trump is positioning himself in a collision course with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer by condemning his party’s energy policy.

This may lead to a fresh US-UK diplomatic crisis in the coming weeks.

Elon Musk has praised his Tesla Cybertruck for limiting damage after it exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on Wednesday (1 January), killing the driver and injuring seven others, and the FBI was investigating whether the blast was an act of terrorism, officials said.

Videos taken by witnesses inside and outside the hotel showed the vehicle exploding and flames pouring out of it, as it sat outside the hotel.

The incident occurred just hours after a man drove a truck into crowds of New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing 15.

The suspect, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a US citizen from Texas who once served in Afghanistan, was killed in a shootout with police after ramming the crowd.

The Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas is part of the Trump Organization, the company of President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on 20 January. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a key backer of Trump in his 2024 presidential campaign and is also an adviser to the incoming president.

“Obviously a Cybertruck, the Trump hotel – there’s lots of questions that we have to answer,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at an afternoon press conference.

FBI special agent in charge Jeremy Schwartz later told reporters that it was not yet clear whether the blast was an act of terrorism.

“I know everybody’s interested in that word, and trying to see if we can say, ‘Hey, this is a terrorist attack.’ That is our goal, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Schwartz said.

He added that the FBI had identified the person driving the vehicle, which had been rented in Colorado, but was not yet ready to publicly identify the driver.

Musk said the blast was unrelated to the Cybertruck itself.

“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” Musk said in a post on X.

“All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.”

Telemetry involves the automatic collection of data from remote sources, transmitting it back to a central source so it can later be analyzed.

A person was found dead inside the 2024 model-year Cybertruck and seven people sustained minor injuries from the explosion, McMahill said. He added that both the Cybertruck and the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack had been rented through car-sharing service Turo.

A Turo spokesperson said the company did not believe either of the renters of the vehicles involved in the Las Vegas and New Orleans attacks had a criminal background that would have identified them as a security threat.

“We are actively partnering with law enforcement authorities as they investigate both incidents,” the spokesperson added.

In another tweet early Thursday morning, Musk praised the cyber truck for limiting damage .

“ evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Cybertruck actually contained the explosion and directed the blast upwards. “

Not even the glass doors of the lobby were broken.

The FBI said the Cybertruck pulled up to the Trump building at 8:40 a.m. local time (1640 GMT). The agency said police were mindful of the New Orleans attack that occurred earlier on Wednesday. The FBI said a potential explosive device was found in the vehicle used in the New Orleans attack.

Las Vegas firefighters responded four minutes after the vehicle fire was reported and extinguished it. Two of the injured people were transported to hospitals with minor injuries. The Trump Hotel was evacuated after the incident and most of the visitors were moved to another hotel.

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and a son of President-elect Trump, posted about the incident on X. “Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas,” he wrote, referring to the building’s covered entrance area.

Watch videos below:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1874614362612326761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1874541084153614339?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw