Republican Mike Johnson from Louisiana has been elected as the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, BBC reported.
Mike Johnson won a House ballot with 220 votes, while 209 congressmen voted for the Democratic candidate Hakeem Jeffries.
Mike Johnson was elected the GOP nominee for Speaker of the House of Representatives on 24 October on an internal vote in a closed-door meeting of Republicans after his rival, Republican Tom Emmer, dropped out.
On 24 October, the majority of the GOP faction (the Republican Party) in the US House of Representatives voted for Republican Tom Emmer as the Speaker nominee on a fifth ballot in the internal race. Tom Emmer beat the newly elected speaker, Mike Johnson: 117 Republicans voted for Emmer, while 97 Republicans voted for Johnson.
However, Tom Emmer failed to win over broad GOP support in a vote before the full House. Emmer decided to drop his bid under pressure from the far-right, Trumpist wing of the Republican Party, which refused to support him. Former US President Donald Trump took direct aim at Emmer in a social media post on 24 October, saying
that voting for Emmer would be “a tragic mistake.”
The newly elected House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, repeatedly voted against support for Ukraine in the US Congress, receiving a "very poor" mark from the initiative Republicans for Ukraine.
The only pro-Ukrainian legislature that Johson voted for is the Lend-Lease Act of 2022.
The House of Representatives has been without a speaker for more than three weeks after the far-right faction of the Republican Party ousted the previous House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, on 3 October.
Related:
- Pro-Ukraine US House speaker candidate drops out after Trump backlash
- Republicans nominate pro-Ukraine candidate as new US House speaker
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