As the House of Representatives headed towards a nail-biting vote on Mike Johnson’s re-election as speaker on Friday, Marjorie Taylor Greene stood to one side, on the phone.
The Georgia congresswoman, who has established a reputation as a rabble rouser and one of Mr Johnson’s fiercest critics, was speaking directly to Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
She had initially opposed Mr Johnson’s return to the speaker’s chair, before reversing her position and calling for Republicans to “come together”.
No one knows what was said on the call. But the moment that she turned on the floor, with Ms Wiles’s name visible on the screen of her iPhone, symbolised the personal relationships Mr Trump must now rely on to keep rebellions at bay. This, it seemed, was the first of many.
Despite his clean-sweep victory on Nov 5, the president-elect is not without his doubters in Congress, and they made themselves known in a red-on-red battle for control of the House leadership.
Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, Mr Trump has always lurked behind the scenes of congressional votes, urging his party to cause as much trouble for the Democrat as possible.
But he has rarely been so present as on Friday, in a vote that exposed the division that will shape the next four years on the Hill.
Several members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hardline conservatives, opposed Mr Johnson’s re-election because of concerns he had worked too closely with Democrats.
In the end, Mr Trump’s personal interventions – via phone, from the golf course – were enough to swing the GOP behind his ally. There are few, it seems, who were brave enough to challenge Mr Trump’s choice for speaker, as some Senate Republicans did in the majority leader election last month.
After reversing her opposition to Mr Johnson, Ms Taylor Greene wrote on X: “Let’s put aside our pride. Let’s put aside our egos. And let’s put aside the infighting.
“It’s time to come together as Republicans, and it’s time to do whatever it takes to make sure that we deliver the mandate that the American people told us to do.”
Those words will be music to the ears of Trump HQ in Mar-a-Lago, where his staff are working on a plan to get his most important measures through Congress after Jan 20.
But there are more battles to come. There is already debate over whether a one-and-done “mega Maga” bill should be put before the House, combining his big spending promises on the border and cuts elsewhere to sweeten the fiscal hawks in his party.
A two-bill plan would prioritise border security, which is popular with most Republicans, and push back discussions about tax and spending to a later vote.
At present, Mr Trump seems minded to deal with all of the issues together, effectively setting up a referendum on his entire policy platform just days after taking office.
Rebels in strong position
There is some risk to that approach. Although the Republican Party has been remade in Mr Trump’s image in recent years, the traditional divisions between populists and cost-cutters remain. Others are concerned about his plans for the economy, especially his love of tariffs and instinct to use trade talks as a foreign policy tool.
With four years until the next election, rebels will be keen to use the first bills of the next Congress to make clear they are willing to stand up to Mr Trump where necessary.
The president-elect’s decision to appoint several sitting congressmen to his administration has only made matters worse. At best, Mr Trump will have a majority of just five in the House after the vacant seats are filled, and a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
That hands significant power to the rebels, who used the Johnson election on Friday to demonstrate their willingness to openly defy Mr Trump in pursuit of spending cuts.
The party’s divisions will soon play out between Congress and the executive, rather than in Florida backrooms and late-night posts on Truth Social.
Mr Trump’s role as Republican marionettist will also become more difficult. For some, it seems, the honeymoon period is already over.
