How Johnson and Jeffries’ once collegial relationship has soured in the era of Trump and shutdown politics

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — When Hakeem Jeffries handed Mike Johnson the speaker’s gavel on the House floor in October 2023, the pair hugged, marking the promise of a new era of bipartisanship.

In one of their first private meetings, the two party leaders agreed they would not launch personal attacks against each other, according to multiple sources familiar with the dynamic.

As two fathers with deeply held religious beliefs, the pair often discussed their faith, the sources said, and forged a working relationship that stemmed from serving together on the House Judiciary Committee early in their congressional careers. At one-point last term, Jeffries even helped Johnson save his job.

But that was in an era of split government when Johnson, trying to put his Republican conference back together after a messy speakership fight, had to work with Democrats who controlled the Senate and President Joe Biden in the White House.

Now, with President Donald Trump’s resurgence, a Republican takeover in Washington that has at times ceded congressional authority on federal spending, and a historic government shutdown, the dynamics between Johnson and Jeffries are different.

As the shutdown drags on, the changing relationship between Johnson and Jeffries may make it even harder for lawmakers to find a way out of the impasse, particularly if a deal to end the stalemate requires a compromise and each leader must make a difficult sell to their members.

The shutdown has also placed a spotlight on the frayed dynamic between Johnson and Jeffries. As the funding lapse has grown more painful for federal workers going without pay and millions of Americans who rely on critical social safety net programs, the two House leaders have sharpened their rhetoric and sought to cast blame on each other’s party for the failure to reopen the government.

And a number of challenges lay ahead. In addition to needing to reopen the government, lawmakers are under pressure – and up against the clock – to negotiate a broader spending deal and come to an agreement on how to address soon-to-expire enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Even though the leaders have remained in contact as the shutdown has dragged on, they have not met in person since a White House meeting on September 29, and multiple sources characterize their brief phone conversations as more of check-ins than meaningful deliberations.

In the meantime, their public comments have become more charged as Johnson has kept the House out of session since September 19.

“I think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are irredeemable at this point,” Johnson said at a press conference on October 29 in response to a question about the shutdown. “I’ve given up on the leadership.”

The next day, Jeffries said at his own press conference, “Republicans hold press conferences every day, and you know what they do? They lie to the American people. These people are stone-cold extremist liars, starting from the very top.”

After Jeffries faced a death threat from a pardoned US Capitol rioter, Jeffries said Johnson never raised the issue with him personally after the individual was arrested last month.

“I spoke to him briefly this week, but he had nothing to say about the death threats. And you know, that’s irredeemable,” Jeffries told reporters of the speaker late last month.

Johnson has condemned the death threat publicly, telling reporters several days earlier, “Anybody who threatens to kill any political official, we denounce it absolutely.”

Earlier this week, Jeffries accused Trump and Johnson of running a “pedophile protection program” for not holding a vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files and on Wednesday, Johnson said Jeffries “apparently is a socialist” for having endorsed New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Asked for comment about the status of his relationship with Johnson, Jeffries said in a statement to CNN, “The unhinged and personal attacks coming from the other side of the aisle are a sign of desperation.”

“That said, I don’t take the baseless ad hominem attacks personally because we’re focused on lowering the high cost of living and addressing the devastating Republican healthcare crisis,” he said.

A Johnson spokesperson separately told CNN that “the Speaker and the Leader have a productive working relationship based on mutual respect and trust” when asked about the pair’s relationship.

“Even when they vehemently disagree on politics and policy, they do not make it or take it personal. The Speaker considers the Leader a friend, and he has always encouraged his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to treat one another as fellow Americans and as individuals made in the image of God,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

But some lawmakers see it playing out differently.

“I think it is fractured,” GOP Rep. Tim Burchett said of the leaders’ relationship. “I don’t know if it’s reparable or not.”

Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman said that when Johnson became speaker, “I think he began with a lot of good will to the point that lots of Democrats talked about defending him if there was a motion to vacate.”

But, Huffman said of the speaker, “there’s just no more goodwill. He’s burned it. He made a choice. His choice is to be joined at the hip with Donald Trump, no matter what Trump says or does, and basically, to pretend Article I doesn’t exist.”

Sources close to both leaders were careful, however, not to say the relationship has fully deteriorated, while still conceding it’s not exactly rosy either.

One source familiar with the relationship likened its current state to a Facebook status of “it’s complicated.”

A senior House Democratic leadership aide emphasized: “We are right up at that line. All you need to do is listen to the daily press conference antagonistic sound bites.”

When things shifted and why it matters

In Johnson’s first term as speaker, the two men found multiple opportunities to find common ground. They met regularly and their staffs had open lines of communication. For nearly two years, Johnson led a razor-thin majority and relied heavily on Jeffries to deliver key votes on foreign aid, to keep the government open, and even fight off a GOP-led effort to remove him from his job.

But by December 2024, shortly after Trump’s election, Johnson no longer needed Jeffries to govern with Trump back in power and Democrats started to feel burned by some of Johnson’s maneuvers.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers and aides pointed to two key episodes in December that they say foreshadowed the current dynamics. The first, they say, was Johnson allowing last-minute partisan provisions to be added to the critical defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act that led to a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations. The second was when, in their view, Johnson moved to accommodate Trump and Elon Musk when the pair derailed a bipartisan, short-term spending compromise.

“All of us felt burned in December,” Huffman reflected. “Things shifted.”

Democrats have increasingly felt that Johnson will do whatever Trump asks of him and because of that no longer think Johnson is capable of being a reliable dealmaker on his own. As a result, many believe the president will need to get involved in negotiations before an end to the shutdown feels real.

“There is total agreement on that: He will only do whatever Trump says,” one Democratic lawmaker told CNN.

Even a Republican lawmaker conceded: “The president is doing all the negotiating.”

On Wednesday, Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer again requested to meet with Trump directly.

“[Trump] needs to get off the sidelines and get in the game, because until he does, this government will remain shut down. Mike Johnson and John Thune have zero authority to act on their own,” Jeffries told reporters.

While both offices have remained in contact, Democrats say that some norms started to erode that made it difficult to work across the aisle. Johnson did not finalize a top line number for appropriators to work off of for 2025, multiple sources told CNN, forcing lawmakers to work on spending bills without an overarching price tag and complicating the bipartisan process that is a bedrock of the institution. Republicans contend that Democrats corroded standards when they stopped voting to keep the government open, a GOP source said.

And Johnson’s team did not give Democrats a heads up when the House would be voting on the new GOP-led January 6 committee – Democratic aides only discovered a mention of a vote to establish the new panel when reading through a separate bill it was tucked into, two sources said.

By the time the September 30 government funding deadline came around, the good will between Jeffries and Johnson appeared on rocky ground.

The Democratic leader used to defend Johnson behind closed doors, telling his Democratic colleagues in caucus meetings that Johnson was an honest broker and that the pair had an understanding, three Democratic lawmakers familiar with the conversations told CNN. But in recent months, that had started to change, the lawmakers said.

One of those Democratic lawmakers told CNN that what Jeffries says about Johnson in private meetings has “changed dramatically.”

“When Johnson came in it was a fresh start, it was a better beginning. It seemed like staff were working together. Everyone wasn’t in agreement, but they were coordinated on things. But I think that has pretty much eroded at this point,” the lawmaker said.

A separate House Democrat said that while Jeffries had once told his members “give him [Johnson] a chance,” Jeffries is now “much more negative.”

The shutdown has fueled concerns – mostly among Democrats, but also among some GOP lawmakers – about the future of the two Hill leaders’ working relationship that many had previously held up as key to the function of the institution.

After Trump’s sharing of a racist, AI-generated video of Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Johnson’s message to his “friend Hakeem” during a press conference on October 2 was: “Man, just ignore it.”

Jeffries called the video “racist and fake” and the condemnation spread among his caucus. In one particularly fiery moment, Rep. Madeleine Dean, who served with Johnson on the House Judiciary panel, confronted the speaker to condemn the video.

With Johnson keeping the House out of session for more than a month and consequently refusing to swear in Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, some Democratic lawmakers say the bad blood has only worsened.

“Hakeem Jeffries has a temperament of being firm in convictions but wanting to find common ground for the country. But when Johnson arbitrarily has shut down Congress – debasing an institution so many of us have pride in – it has really made it difficult for Jeffries to find a way forward,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told CNN.

Another Republican lawmaker conceded: “I know they used to talk a lot. I don’t know where it stands now.”

There have been a few glimmers of bipartisanship for Johnson and Jeffries since Trump got elected. In particular, there’s their work on increasing lawmaker security and Jeffries delivering Johnson the votes to stave off censure resolutions brought from his right-flank to the House floor targeting certain members, moves that take up valuable floor time and take time away from other priorities of GOP leadership.

With Trump in the White House, however, their once productive working relationship appears not what it used to be.

Even so, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say the mutual respect and understanding that both leaders initially made the foundation of their relationship is key to reopening the government and moving forward.

“Left to their own devices, they’re powerful and well-intentioned, principled men who have real and meaningful disagreements. The device that has been inserted here is the president,” remarked a source familiar with Jeffries and Johnson’s relationship.

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