Trump faces pressure to keep coalition together before term even starts

President-elect Donald Trump has not been inaugurated yet, but he is already experiencing difficulties keeping his coalition together as his populist base and new tech baron allies splinter over his expansive second-term legislative agenda.

Amid a more organized transition period than ahead of his first term, Trump appears more mindful of the small window of opportunity he will have to capitalize on his political goodwill and make progress on his legislative priorities. Trump has been proactively stepping into the policy disagreements over H-1B visas and the political disagreement over this week’s speakership election.

Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency co-chairmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy‘s support of H-1B visas, the country’s largest visa category for foreign specialty skilled workers, stirred controversy. Ramaswamy argued that tech companies employ foreign engineers because U.S. “culture” has “venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Trump, whose agenda includes raising the debt ceiling within his first 100 days in office, sounded notably sympathetic.

“I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” Trump told the New York Post last weekend.

Since Trump’s comments, high-profile conservative critics of Musk, Ramaswamy, and H-1B visas, including Laura Loomer, have redirected some of their ire toward the tech industry rather than the visa program.

“Techno feudalism is the greatest threat to humanity. I really hope MAGA wakes up to this before it’s too late,” Loomer wrote on X.

But the issue has presented a test for Trump’s power over conservatives with his comments not stopping the likes of New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax and former Trump Deputy Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli from repeating their criticism of the visas, which many regard as importing cheap foreign labor.

“All the anti-H1B MAGA accounts are still anti-H1B. Nothing changed,” Wax wrote on X.

“Here’s an H1B visa stat for you: Last year, the top 30 H-1B visa employers laid off 84,556 people at the same time as they sought 34,414 new H1-B foreign workers,” Cuccinelli added on the same social media platform. “This includes firms such as @elonmusk‘s Tesla.”

Although some Trump supporters argue the disagreement is part of an important policy debate, the reactions of others, including conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, underscored the contentious nature of the discussion last weekend.

“Jeepers creepers we don’t need a MAGA civil war,” Lahren wrote on X. “I’m not personally a fan of expanding H-1B visas but doesn’t mean I now want Elon out of the MAGA tent. It’s a big tent. Debate. Disagree. Discuss.”

In a separate attempt to keep the coalition together, Trump endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday before Friday’s speakership election as some House Republicans expressed concerns over Johnson’s leadership, including his decision to negotiate a bipartisan federal government funding deal with Democrats and not addressing the debt ceiling, as demanded by Trump, in the legislation that was eventually signed into law by President Joe Biden.

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

Trump’s endorsement came hours after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a libertarian, repeated that he would not vote for Johnson, comparing him to former Speaker Paul Ryan, who he contended led a “fake repeal” of Obamacare, increased government spending, and helped the so-called deep state but not to build a southern border wall.

“I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Massie wrote on X. “We’ve seen Johnson partner with the [Democrats] to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), who was born in Ukraine, also reiterated her reservations about Johnson and asked for “assurances” that he “won’t sell us out to the swamp.”

Trump’s tactic acknowledgment that, despite his Electoral College and popular vote win in last month’s election, he will need to jealously guard his political capital in his second term if he hopes to extend his 2017 tax cuts before they expire next December. Other Republicans feel similarly. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Monday he has not “publicly or privately committed yet” regarding Johnson because he wants to “speak [with] the speaker just to see what his plans are.”

In another interview with the Alec Lace Show, Biggs remained adamant that he did not “want to distract from the agenda” and considered it likely that Johnson will be speaker.

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“We’re going to basically push him as hard as we can to enact the agenda,” Biggs said. “He’s going to have to enact the agenda and tell people who say, ‘Well, I can’t do that in my in my district,’ ‘You’re going to have to do it, even if your district doesn’t like it, and then we’re going to protect you on the wings.’”

“But this notion that, ‘Hey, we’re going to have this fight,’ I just don’t think that that’s where everybody’s head is right now,” he continued. “We just don’t want the distraction. We want to put pedal to the metal to get this agenda going as fast as we can.”

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