Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) may not be speaker after Friday’s vote—though he did get the nod from President-elect Donald Trump Monday morning. But even then, Trump spent most of his endorsement bragging about winning the election.

Johnson faces an uphill battle to retain the speakership on January 3’s scheduled vote as the new session of Congress begins. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the first Republican to say he would be voting against Johnson. Several other Republicans from the rightmost wing of the party have played coy about who they’ll vote for. On Monday morning, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) criticized Johnson in a Fox and Friends appearance. She also neglected to say how she would be voting.

“If we don’t have a speaker with the courage, vision and the plan, and if Speaker Johnson wants to be speaker, then he needs to lay out the plan and commit to that plan, not like what he did last year,” she said, according to Mediaite.

READ MORE: House Could Be Heading For Another Speaker Battle As Dems Refuse to Help Mike Johnson

Posting to Truth Social, Trump gave Johnson his endorsement in a rambling message that treated the embattled speaker more like an afterthought. The vast majority of his 241-word statement was spent bragging about how Trump won the 2024 election and criticizing Democrats. Only 29 words—30 if you count “MAGA!!”—was spent on Johnson.

“We are the Party of COMMON SENSE, a primary reason that we WON, in a landslide, the magnificent and historic Presidential Election of 2024. ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, 312 ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES, AND THE POPULAR VOTE BY MILLIONS OF VOTERS (Despite large scale voter fraud taking place in numerous states, including California, where votes are ridiculously still being counted, or under review!), ALL WON WITH EASE, CALM, & PROFESSIONALISM,” Trump wrote in part, before condemning Democrats for “having wasted 2.5 Billion Dollars,” and accusing them of “illegally [buying] endorsements.”

“$11,000,000 to Beyoncé, who never even sang a song, $2,000,000 to Oprah for doing next to nothing, and even $500,000 to Reverend AL, a professional con man and instigator, who agreed to “interview” their “star spangled” candidates, Kamala and Joe,” Trump wrote.

Continuing to brag about how his campaign won despite spending “FAR LESS,” Trump eventually gets to the matter at hand.

“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!” Trump wrote, the entirety of his comments on Johnson.

Though the Republicans maintained their control of the House, their majority is again razor-thin. If Johnson wants to remain speaker, he needs almost all of his party to vote for him. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes; assuming Massie is not swayed by Trump’s endorsement, that means if only one other Republican defects, he can’t win.

Johnson even reportedly asked Elon Musk if he was interested in becoming speaker, despite Musk not being elected to any position. Without a speaker, the House cannot function—and that includes being unable to certify the presidential election if no speaker is chosen by January 6.

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Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie have joined former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) call to release the “congressional sexual slush fund,” a list of congresspeople accused of sexual harassment.

On Thursday, both Greene (R-Ga.) and Massie (R-Ky.), posted to X calling for the release of information from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which handles complaints of harassment by members of Congress.

“Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices. Don’t you think we should release the names of the Representatives? I do,” Massie tweeted, along with a video of Massie at the June 14 House Judiciary Committee hearing about former President Donald Trump’s hush money case.

READ MORE: GOP Congressman Who Cost Taxpayers $84,000 in Sexual Harassment Suit Refuses to Quit but Won’t Run for Re-Election

Greene retweeted Massie’s post, adding, “Yes. I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list. Tax payers should have never had to pay for that. Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for.”

Yes. I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list.

Tax payers should have never had to pay for that.

Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for. https://t.co/8CyCO0haHk

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 26, 2024

Concern about the “slush fund” has been circulating since the story first broke in 2017. However, it has picked up steam recently during the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of Gaetz. Last week, Gaetz suggested that he would show up on the first day of Congress to file a motion calling for the release of this information before resigning.

“Someone suggested the following plan to me: 1. Show up 1/3/2025 to congress 2. Participate in Speaker election (I was elected to the 119th Congress, after all…) 3. Take the oath 4. File a privileged motion to expose every ‘me too’ settlement paid using public funds (even of former members) 5. Resign and start my @OANN program at 9pm EST on January 6, 2025,” he posted to X, alongside a “thinking” emoji. 

What Greene calls a “congressional sexual slush fund” refers to the payments made by the OCWR, formerly known as the Office of Compliance. The OCWR was established by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. The OCWR is sort of like Congress’ HR department. In addition to handling harassment complaints, it also makes sure that Legislative Branch properties adhere to OSHA regulations, the Americans with Disabilities Act and other administrative concerns.

Though it was reported in 2021 that over $18.2 million had been paid in settlements since 1997, not all of those funds were used in sexual harassment suits. Some of the money has been used to pay for workplace safety and pay disputes, according to RealClear Policy. In addition, some politicians accused of sexual harassment have paid victims out of their own pockets.

That said, the OCWR has not released much information about these settlements, and it’s unclear how much of that money was used specifically on sexual harassment cases. In addition, many harassment claims are settled in mediation, according to CNN, so knowing the amount of money spent on sexual harassment claims could still underreport the number of cases.

Though thanks to Gaetz’s pushing, Republicans have recently embraced requiring the OCWR release this information, it’s had bipartisan support in the past. In 2017, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) called the OCWR “an enabler of sexual harassment” due to the secrecy, according to Politico.

“Make no mistake that the fault of the current complaint process lies within Congress, which authored and passed this deeply flawed legislation that established the Office of Compliance and its burdensome complaint process,” Speier told Politico at the time. “It is our responsibility to fix this law and do better for our employees.”

Speier, joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), proposed the Member and Employee Training and Oversight on (ME TOO) Congress Act in 2017, which would require the OCWR to identify congress members who settled sexual harassment suits and pay back the Treasury for funds paid to their victims, according to Vox.

It was passed in the House that November. The Senate referred it to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, but the bill ultimately died in committee.

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Outgoing Representative Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said that she made the decision not to run for her seat again after meeting with President Joe Biden early in the campaign and seeing his decline.

Kuster, 68, said this March she would not run for re-election to the House seat she’s held for nearly 12 years. She told the Boston Globe on Thursday that she’d made the decision after flying with Biden on Air Force One. She says that though she felt he was capable of serving the rest of his term as president, she could see the signs of aging.

“Just in my heart, [I] reached the conclusion that this would be a very challenging campaign for him, and to put himself out there for another four-year term was was going to be a struggle,” she told the Globe.

READ MORE: Two-Thirds of Americans Want Age Limits for Politicians, Supreme Court

She also suggested that Biden’s advisers may have tried to hide the effect that the president’s age had on him, but wasn’t sure how much the party had. When the Democratic party first started floating the idea of replacing him on the ticket, she compared it to discussing end-of-life care for loved ones.

“It was painful. I haven’t had these kind of conversations since I talked to my own parents about, you know, their aging and their limitations,” she said.

Kuster hopes other senior citizen politicians follows her lead.

Image by Tim Pierce via Wikimedia Commons