Welcome to the NewsHour. It was a dramatic beginning to the 119th Congress as Republicans prepare for unified control in Washington.

And for the House GOP, unified it was, albeit with some delay.

Despite a handful of initial holdouts, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana was re-elected Speaker of the House on the first ballot,

earning support from all but one member of his party. Johnson spoke about his priorities for the coming year.

After four years of high inflation, we have a big agenda. We have a lot to do, and we can do it in a bipartisan fashion.

We can fight high inflation, and we must. We'll give relief to Americans

and we'll extend the Trump tax cuts. Speaker Johnson will now have to wrangle the narrow Republican

majority to implement President-elect Donald Trump's agenda. Lisa Desjardin has been tracking

the maneuvering on Capitol Hill all day and she joins me now. So Lisa, a dramatic day,

indeed. Walk us through how this vote unfolded.

Maneuvering is the right word on, no. Walking into the House today, it seemed the odds were

against Mike Johnson winning on the first vote or even today at all. He had 12 at least members

that I knew of who had serious doubts and were

ready to vote no. And in fact, he wasn't losing this race for at least an hour. Let's go over

those numbers. To become Speaker of the House, Johnson needed 218 votes. And initially, he received

only 216. Three Republicans voted against him, voted for someone else.

And those members were members of the hard right.

All three of them, Thomas Massive, Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Keith South of Oklahoma,

prominent fiscal hawks.

They care about the debt and deficit.

They think that Johnson botched the last funding deal.

And they are someone who they believe that he has not been a strong enough speaker.

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