Speaker Gingrich is urging House Republicans to support Speaker Johnson on the floor later this week, rather than repeating the four-day melodrama that played out two years ago. At least one Republican has said he will not vote for Mr. Johnson under any circumstances, and several others have said they are keeping their options open. 

Mr. Gingrich, who held the speaker’s gavel from 1995 to 1999, has said in the past that there is no one on Earth who could manage the current paper-thin House Republican majority. 

On Sunday, he told New York billionaire radio host John Catsimatidis that Republicans shouldn’t waste time with an ugly floor fight they way they did in January 2023, when several House GOP members denied Speaker McCarthy his position for several days. 

“Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, is doing an extraordinary job,” Mr. Gingrich says. “I tell everybody, I was a pretty effective speaker. I could never do his job. He has no margins. Any two or three members can rebel at any moment.”

Mr. Gingrich says that his party needs to get behind the incumbent speaker because the American people aren’t clamoring for more drama and dysfunction. 

“They need a Republican unity program for the next two years. These guys who wake up every morning and say, ‘I’m going to vote no. What’s the issue?’ are totally destructive and hand the House over to the Democrats,” he said. 

Other House speakers have had similarly difficult relationships with members of their right flank. Speaker Boehner once called those lawmakers “legislative terrorists.” Speaker Ryan was threatened often by the handful of conservatives who are now threatening Mr. Johnson, though Mr. Ryan’s 2017 majority was nearly two dozen seats, while Mr. Johnson’s 2025 majority will be just two. 

President Trump has yet to offer his famous “complete and total endorsement” for Mr. Johnson this time around, though he has said in the past that the Louisianan is doing a good job. According to Politico, Trump is considering backing someone else for the speakership come January 3, though a serious challenger to Mr. Johnson has yet to emerge. 

Even if Trump does enter the fray for Mr. Johnson or any other speaker candidate, it may have no effect. The Republican who has said he will never vote for Mr. Johnson — Congressman Thomas Massie — famously sparred with Trump over the 45th president’s Covid stimulus plan. Mr. Massie later defeated the Republican primary challenger that Trump had put up against him. 

In 2023, other conservatives were unmoved by Trump’s pleas to elect Mr. McCarthy to the post. In one of the more surreal moments of that fight, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was seen on the House floor trying to force her cell phone into an anti-McCarthy lawmaker’s ear so he could speak to Trump himself, though that congressman declined.