Former Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman-turned-attorney-general-nominee-turned-cable-news-host-with-baggage, made a bold proclamation at 9:46 a.m. on the opening day of the 119th Congress.
“Mike Johnson will be elected Speaker today,” Mr. Gaetz, who brought down the last Republican speaker, wrote on social media. “On the first vote. People might like or dislike that. I’m just reporting the news.”
With potential holdouts hinting at a revolt against Mr. Johnson, it seemed like an overly optimistic statement regarding the fate of an embattled leader presiding over a minuscule majority. But in the end, it turned out that Mr. Gaetz was well-sourced on the story.
Several hours and one prolonged roll-call vote later — after six abstainers finally said Mr. Johnson’s name and President-elect Donald J. Trump called in from his golf course in Florida to persuade two other defectors to switch their votes — Mr. Johnson won the gavel.
The relief was apparent on his anxious face.
It felt like an appropriately wobbly start to what promises to be a turbulent Republican-majority Congress at the dawn of Mr. Trump’s second term.
While Mr. Johnson spent the morning huddling in his office suite near the Rotunda and talking with holdouts, the Capitol was buzzing with first-day-of-school energy.
On the Senate side, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived to swear in 100 senators, including political detractors like Josh Hawley of Missouri and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, who made polite chitchat with the woman they had lambasted just months ago for her “radical agenda.”
A gaggle of daughters who came with Dave McCormick, the Pennsylvania Republican who unseated Senator Bob Casey, the state’s longtime Democratic incumbent, lingered after he took his oath to take a group shot with Ms. Harris, whispering and giggling with her before reluctantly walking off.
Back in the House, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California received a hero’s welcome on her first return to Washington since undergoing an emergency hip surgery after tripping on a marble staircase in Luxembourg. In a stunning move, Ms. Pelosi had traded her signature stilettos for cozy slip-on clogs.
She sat near Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader from New York, who kept his expression stoic through Mr. Johnson’s travails, as if to silently telegraph that the dysfunction unfolding on the floor was at the hands of Republicans, as per usual.
Earlier in the day, as Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as White House doctor during Mr. Trump’s first term, picked up a new congressional license plate and member pin, he said he was feeling dubious about Mr. Johnson’s fate.
“Maybe somebody has to do a protest vote or something to get it out of their system, but they better get it out of their system,” he said. “Trump can do a lot with executive orders but the whole point of this is, we need to legislate.”
With all the drama and speculation, it was easy to forget that until the last Congress, the election of a speaker was little more than a formality. But as the vote began to unfold on Friday, it looked like House Republicans were set to repeat their performance of two years ago, when it took Representative Kevin McCarthy 15 votes and four days to secure the gavel in a once-in-a-century embarrassment of a floor fight.
Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, cast a protest vote for Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the G.O.P. whip, and then Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina called out, “Jim Jordan,” making it seem as if Mr. Johnson would lose on the first round. Soon, Representative Keith Self of Texas would join them in naming someone else.
Milling ensued. So did whipping phone calls from Mr. Trump, who was reached on his golf course in Florida to twist the arms of some of the holdouts.
Typically disruptive members of Congress suddenly stepped up to try and help close the deal. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who last year tried to oust Mr. Johnson, had come around and was photographed talking on the phone to Susie Wiles, the incoming White House chief of staff.
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy last year, pulled the holdouts into a private room so they could talk on speakerphone with Mr. Trump.
After delivering some level of humiliation to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Self and Mr. Norman ultimately flipped and allowed him to win the gavel in the first round of votes — just as Mr. Gaetz had predicted.
Some Republicans tried to look on the bright side.
“He did in one ballot what it took us 15 to do last time,” said Representative Tom Cole, the veteran Republican from Oklahoma. “I think that is a very good sign.”
But that is the beginning of the story, not the end. Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus registered in a letter their “sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months.”
Mr. Trump was more upbeat.
“Mike will be a Great Speaker,” he wrote on social media, “and our Country will be the beneficiary.”
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