Although she covered the device with her hand, a sharp photographer for Reuters news agency, Evelyn Hockstein, captured the name of the person on the other end of the conversation – incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

It was a tangible sign of the enormous interest President-elect Donald Trump was taking in this vote. Trump had enthusiastically endorsed Johnson to be speaker for the incoming session of Congress earlier this week, and defeat in the first round of balloting would have been an embarrassment.

Behind the scenes, however, wheels were furiously turning – setting up a chaotic interlude in the House after Johnson had initially appeared headed to at least a temporary defeat.

At one point, Johnson walked out of the chamber, followed by two of the men who had opposed him, Ralph Norman of North Carolina and Keith Self of Texas. Meanwhile, other members of the House and their families milled about and chatted, waiting to see what happened next.

When Johnson ultimately returned, he was all smiles.

Trump himself had made a direct appeal to Norman and Self to back Johnson via speakerphone conversation, Republican sources told news outlets including Politico.

Because the vote had not been officially declared to be closed, Norman and Self were able to switch their votes to the Louisianian, putting him at just the 218 mark necessary to retain the speaker’s gavel. Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was the lone Republican holdout.

Both Norman and Self told reporters after the vote that they had spoken to Trump during the course of the day.Norman said he conversed with Trump twice on Friday. The first during a several-minute phone call when fellow Republican Nancy Mace handed him her phone and the president-elect was on the other line.

The second time was a longer, 15-minute call that included Norman, Johnson and Self, he said, without confirming the exact timing.

“Trump was exactly right when he told me Mike is the only one who has the likeability factor,” Norman said.

He went on to describe Trump as “enthusiastic” about the Republican trifecta in Washington – control of the House, Senate and presidency.

“I said, ‘Mr President I agree with you, I’m just hoping Mike has got the oomph to pull this off,'” Norman said.

Self also said he spoke with Trump several times on Friday.”We had a discussion about the entire process,” he said of his conversation with the president-elect.

Ultimately, embarrassment was avoided – even if Trump publicly appeared to be more focused on other things.

In the midst of the voting, as the names of House members were called in alphabetical order, the president-elect was complaining on social media about the possibility that US flags would be at half-staff during his 20 January inauguration – part of the traditional mourning process following the death of former president Jimmy Carter.

Friday afternoon’s proceedings underscored just how tenuous the Republican majority in the House of Representatives will be over the course of the coming months.

Besides the three initial Republican votes against Johnson, another five hard-line conservatives – who have objected to the compromises Johnson has made with Democrats in the past – delayed casting their ballots during the initial roll call. While they ultimately relented, it was a very obvious shot across the speaker’s bow.

After the final vote, the House Freedom Caucus – some of whom were among the temporary holdouts – released a statement explaining that they ultimately backed Johnson because of their support for Trump.

“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” they wrote.

For now, the party holds a 219 to 215 edge over Democrats – but that could shrink by two if Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York and Michael Waltz of Florida fill administration jobs Trump has offered them. It will be months until special elections determine their replacements.

That means Trump will have to hold his entire House Republican membership together if he wants to pass key pieces of his legislative agenda early in his presidency, including hardline immigration reforms, new tariffs, and tax and spending cuts.

As Friday demonstrated, this could be a tall task.

Johnson could only afford to lose two votes because of the tight margin of control Republicans have in Congress. While he came close to losing re-election, he survived the vote after some lobbying.

President-elect Donald Trump previously endorsed Johnson for the role of House speaker, saying “a win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party”.

The House Speaker is one of the most powerful posts in Washington, controlling the lower chamber of the US Congress, and second in line to the presidency after the vice president.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, was backed by nearly all Republicans in his bid for re-election.But that success was not without some controversary.

The vote for Speaker requires a candidate to receive the support of a majority of the House – 218 votes. But because of a razor-thin Republican majority in the House, Johnson could only stand to face opposition from two Republicans.Johnson already faced one hard “no” from Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“You can pull all my fingernails out. You can shove bamboo up in them. You can start cutting off my fingers. I am not voting for Mike Johnson,” Massie said Thursday in a television interview.

Several other Republicans had put themselves in the “undecided” column heading into the vote.

During the initial votes, three of those undecided Republicans voted for other lawmakers over Johnson, preventing him from reaching the 218 votes he needed.

Three lawmakers – Massie, South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman and Texas Congressman Keith Self – named other options to serve as the next speaker.That led Johnson to flee the House floor and lobby members to back him. Some 45 minutes later, he returned to the House chamber.

Both Norman and Self changed their votes to back Johnson.The gavel struck and Johnson won re-election.

Norman told reporters after the election that he changed his vote after speaking with Johnson in a room outside the House chamber.

He said Johnson told him there would be more conservatives at the table during negotiations, fewer deals made between congressional and committee leadership without outside input from other lawmakers and enough time to read bill text before votes are scheduled.

“When we left that small room, he convinced me and Keith (Self),” Norman said. “He (Johnson) said I will do that, just give me the chance. He knew, and I knew if it went to the second ballot, it was going to get tougher and tougher.”Another player got involved throughout the tense speaker election – President-elect Donald Trump.Norman spoke with Trump twice during the speaker vote.

The first time was when fellow Republican Nancy Mace of South Carolina handed him her phone to speak with the president-elect. The second was while meeting with Johnson, Self and several others.

“(Trump) is as enthusiastic,” Norman said of the call with the president-elect. “He said, ‘Norman, we have the most opportunity we’ve ever had – the House, Senate, a trifecta, you don’t get that opportunity.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, I agree with you, I’m just hoping Mike has got the oomph to pull this off.”

Norman said the president-elect also said Johnson is the only one who has the likeability to win the speaker election.

Self told reporters after the vote that he spoke with Trump before and after the speaker election.He said he changed his mind when Johnson pledged there would be more members, including from the far-right House Freedom Caucus, at the negotiating table.

“We shored up the reconciliation team because we know that this will be a heavy lift to get the Trump agenda across the line in the reconciliation line,” he said.

Friday marked the first day of the 119th Congress. Republicans have unified control of Washington, with majorities in both the House and Senate and with Trump returning to the White House later in January.

During his acceptance speech, Johnson said that this Congress would champion the idea of America first – a slogan promoted by Trump.

After Trump’s re-election, he said Americans are demanding their interests are put first again.

“And we will,” Johnson said.Voting in a new speaker is the first requirement of the new session of Congress, and without that leader in place, the chamber can not move on to any other function.

This has led to chaos in the past – including when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to go through 15 rounds of voting before he was confirmed to the leadership post.

Minutes before the vote on Friday, Johnson posted on X several of his plans, if elected.

He promised to create a “working group comprised of independent experts” to work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that Trump named Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy to lead.

That working group, he said, would review existing audits of federal agencies and entities created by Congress and issue a report.

“If we want to restore fiscal responsibility, we must start by being transparent about the dollars that are spent, address the issues we find, and then hold those accountable who have misspent funds,” Johnson wrote.

The budget deal was passed shortly after a midnight deadline passed.It does not include a demand from President-elect Donald Trump that lawmakers increase how much money the federal government can borrow, showing the limits of his ability to command lawmakers from his own party.

The bill now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. A statement from Biden’s spokeswoman released earlier on Friday night said that he approved of the deal.

Lawmakers earlier this week had successfully negotiated a deal to fund government agencies but it fell apart after Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Republicans to reject it.

The bill approved by Congress is the third one lawmakers voted on this week, after members of Congress voted down two earlier drafts.

Republicans tried to regroup on Thursday afternoon, offering a new, slimmed-down package to fund the government. That vote failed, as 38 Republicans joined most Democrats in voting no.

All this political drama provides just a taste of the chaos and unpredictability that could be in store under unified Republican rule in Washington next year.

The man at the centre of this week’s drama holds no official government title or role. What Elon Musk does have, however, is hundreds of billions of dollars, a social media megaphone and the ear not just of the president of the United States but also rank-and-file conservatives in Congress.

On Wednesday morning, the tech tycoon took to X, which he purchased for $44bn two years ago, to disparage a compromise that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats to temporarily fund US government operations until mid-March.

As the number of his posts about the proposed agreement stretched into triple digits, at times amplifying factually inaccurate allegations made by conservative commentators, opposition to the legislation in Congress grew.

And by Wednesday evening, Donald Trump – perhaps sensing that he needed to get in front of the growing conservative uprising – publicly stated that he, too, opposed the government funding bill.

He said it contained wasteful spending and Democratic priorities, while also demanding that Congress take the politically sensitive step of raising – or even doing away with – the legal cap on newly issued American debt that the US would reach sometime next summer.

Support for the stopgap spending bill then collapsed, forcing Johnson and his leadership team to scramble to find an alternative path forward. As they did, Musk celebrated, proclaiming that “the voice of the people has triumphed”.

It may be more accurate, however, to say that it was Musk’s voice that triumphed.

On Thursday afternoon, Republicans unveiled a new proposal that suspended the debt limit for the first two years of Trump’s second term, funded the government until March and included some disaster relief and other measures included in the original funding package.

But Musk’s involvement may not land well with some legislators. Democrats in the chamber joked about “President Musk”, while even a few Republicans publicly grumbled.”Who?”

Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson responded when asked about Musk. “I don’t see him in the chamber.”

Musk may have been the instigator, but this latest congressional funding crisis reveals what has been – and is likely to continue to be – an ongoing challenge for the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

For two years, Republicans in the chamber have grappled with keeping a united front amidst a party populated, at least in part, by politicians with an active contempt for the government they help to run.

Internal divisions delayed Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker of the House in January 2022 and led to his removal – a first in American history – the following year.

Johnson ultimately replaced him, but only after weeks of leaderless limbo.

Some Republicans had hoped that with Trump’s election, members of their majority, which will become even slimmer when the new Congress is sworn in next month, would be more willing to march in lockstep to support the new president’s agenda. And some are.

“I think President Trump pretty much laid out the plan, so I don’t know what the discussions are about,” Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna told reporters after internal Republican meetings on Thursday afternoon.

What this week has revealed, however, is that the president-elect may not always offer the legislature the clear, consistent direction it requires.

His insistence on raising the debt limit, for instance, caught many in his own party by surprise. And outside influences, such as from Musk or others, could inject extra instability into the process.

If Republicans aren’t able to reach near unanimity in the House, they will have to find ways to win over Democrats if they want to achieve any kind of legislative success. And what this week showed (once again) is that the kind of political compromises necessary could prompt a greater number of Republican defections.

Trump’s party will be challenged to effectively govern on its own – but it also may not be able to tolerate governing with the help of Democrats.

If there is no political equilibrium in the chamber, it would put Trump’s more ambitious legislative priorities at risk before he even takes office.

Republicans may yet find a way to avoid a lengthy government shutdown through a temporary budget resolution, even though the first round of pressure from Trump resulted in an embarrassing failure to win enough support within his own party.

For Johnson, however, the damage may have already been done. His authority over House Republicans has been undercut – first by Musk and then by Trump – just a few weeks before he stands for re-election as speaker of the House.

Already one Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has said he will not support Johnson’s re-election. Others, including members of Johnson’s own leadership team, have been noncommittal.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia congresswoman who unsuccessfully pushed to remove Johnson in May, suggested Musk become speaker.

Meanwhile, Trump – the one man who could throw Johnson a lifeline – has been equivocal, telling Fox News that Johnson could “easily” remain speaker if he “acts decisively and tough”.

Decisiveness may not be enough, however, when every direction for the speaker appears to lead to a dead end.