WSJ What’s News - Mike Johnson Wins the Vote for House Speaker on First Ballot

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

P.M. Edition for Jan. 3. After some last-minute drama, incumbent Mike Johnson won the first vote for House speaker. Siobhan Hughes, who covers Congress for the Wall Street Journal, tells us how this sets the tone for this Congress and President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda. And President Joe Biden has blocked a sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel. WSJ reporter Bob Tita discusses where U.S. Steel goes from here. Plus, we talk with health reporter Brianna Abbott about why the U.S. surgeon general wants to put warning labels on alcoholic beverages. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three, two, one. What will the world look like 10 or 20 years from now? The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a peek. And we can't wait to show you what's coming. Subscribe now. After some late drama, Mike Johnson is elected as speaker of the House on the first ballot. And President Biden blocks the sale of U.S. steel to Japan's Nippon steel. This is a signal that the U.S. government is becoming more protectionist, less open to foreign business investment, particularly as it relates to foreign companies buying U.S. companies.

Plus, the U.S. Surgeon General wants to add labels to alcoholic beverages, warning that they cause cancer. It's Friday, January 3rd. I'm Alex Osela for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Incumbent Mike Johnson has won enough votes to remain House Speaker. He won on the first ballot.

Johnson could only afford to lose one Republican vote, and three Republicans initially voted for other candidates. But after Johnson huddled with two of the holdouts, they changed their votes, bringing Johnson's total to the 218 he needed to win. Therefore, the honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives

for the 119th Congress. Shavon Hughes, who covers Congress for the Wall Street Journal, joins me now from the Capitol. So, Shavon, how significant is this win on the first ballot, even with that kind of last minute scrambling? It's a big deal because Mike Johnson forever is going to be able to say he got this on the first ballot, he sidelined any dissent, and he is now on course to drive through Trump's agenda.

Yeah. What made those two Republican representatives, Ralph Norman from South Carolina and Keith Self from Texas, changed their minds. One word Trump. Donald Trump was placing calls to these holdout Republicans and eventually they responded to that pressure. So it sounds like Trump is holding quite a bit of sway already over this new Congress. He absolutely is. That's a fair assessment. And this had been an open question heading into the speaker vote, because last year,

dozens of Republicans so spectacularly bucked Donald Trump when he'd wanted to get a debt ceiling increase through on a spending bill. And when they voted against him, there was a question about how much his influence was going to extend. And so far, it's extensive. There was only one Republican, Thomas Massey,

to vote for somebody other than Donald Trump. So looking ahead a little bit, what might this tell us about how Congress could work with Trump's agenda moving forward? Well, what this tells us is that there is a pathway for Republicans to pursue Trump's agenda. But it also tells us that this is a very narrow pathway. While the holdouts didn't really negotiate anything of substance, there are no wins here.

They certainly put Republicans and in some sense, Donald Trump on notice that they're ready to rattle the sabers. And really, if they continue to do so, it's probably going to depend on how closely the base continues to stick with Donald Trump. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Hughes. A New York judge said today he would move forward and sentence Donald Trump for his hush money conviction before the president-elect begins his second term in the White House. Justice Juan Mirchand said he would sentence Trump on January 10th, rejecting Trump's argument that the verdict couldn't remain in place after his re-election. Mirshan said that Trump could appear for his sentencing, which will be held in state court in Manhattan, either virtually or in person. Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S.

Now, the U. the US Surgeon General says alcoholic beverages should carry cancer warnings to increase awareness. The recommendation follows a years long debate within the health and scientific community. Changing the label would require an act of Congress and it's unclear if the Surgeon General's proposal would get bipartisan support.

Wine and spirits industry groups didn't immediately comment. Industry group, the Beer Institute, said they encouraged drinkers to consume alcoholic beverages in moderation. WSJ health reporter Brianna Abbott says that it's not yet clear what this could mean for alcohol companies. The implications for especially alcohol companies is to be determined. We're not quite sure if that's going to be passed, but there's definitely in the scientific community more of a movement to look much more critically at alcohol and potentially encourage people to curb back on their alcohol consumption. The industry is already seeing fewer Americans drinking alcohol than in previous years because of things like health concerns and changing tastes, and you've seen

non-alcoholic beers and spirits gain popularity as well. There is a sticking point between different scientific groups and industry about just how much alcohol raises cancer risk and how much of it is safe. We don't fully have an answer to that question, but there is data that suggests that though averaging no more than about one drink a day carries relatively low risk, the risk increases with every drink that you have. A couple of other reports are coming as the national dietary guidelines are being rethought. So there's definitely more news to come in the space. In the morning edition of What's News on Monday, Brianna will be discussing the rise in cancer cases in young people. Coming up, what happens to US steel after President Biden blocked its sale to Nepal's

steel? That's after the break. What then will the future reveal? There's one thing we know about the future. It's being built now. We all have a stake in the future. The future. The future. The future. The future. And the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a glimpse of what's

on the way. I'm Danny Lewis. Join us as we dig into how science and technology are shaping the future. That is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. As expected, President Biden has blocked the sale of U.S. steel to Japan's Nippon Steel. His decision comes after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a federal interagency panel, spent months reviewing the deal for potential national security risks.

The committee deadlocked, which left the decision up to Biden. Nepal's deal and U.S. deal said the president's order didn't present any, quote, credible evidence of a national security issue, end quote, and criticized the committee's review of the deal. Here to tell us more about the scrap deal and its implications is Bob Tita, who covers metals and manufacturing for the Wall Street Journal. So, Bob, why did Biden ultimately reject this deal? The president basically said that there were national security issues related to the acquisition

of U.S. steel. They didn't really give a lot of specificity about what those issues were or why they were a deal breaker. This is a signal that the US government is becoming more protectionist, less open to foreign business investment, particularly as it relates to foreign companies buying US companies. That's become a lot more politically volatile in recent years. The sale of US Steel was criticized by President-elect Trump. There's been a lot of pushback on foreign companies buying U.S. companies.

So where does this leave U.S. Steel? Well, it goes back kind of the way it has been. They continue to run as a standalone company. The steel market is quite weak. And so the likelihood that somebody else would summon and offer the same amount of money as a Nippon steel seems unlikely in this kind of a market so it's not really clear if there is a plan B in terms of a buyer. US Steel has basically said if this deal doesn't go through we will continue to implement that strategy, which is basically closing down steel production at these older higher

cost plants and transferring production to newer lower cost mills elsewhere in the country. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Bob Tita. In U.S. markets, stocks charged higher today, with major indexes shaking off a days-long losing streak. NASDAQ led today's gains up about 1.8 percent. The S&P 500's about 1.3 percent gain was its best one-day performance since November 6, and the Dow rose just shy of 1%. In other news, the auto industry is expected to report a small increase in U.S. vehicle sales for 2024. Forecasters estimate about 16 million new vehicles were sold in the U.S. in 2024,

a gain of about 3% from the prior year. The inventory shortage that had plagued the U.S. car market for years eased in 2024. According to the research firm JD Power, a robust holiday selling season helped boost numbers with December up about 7%. For 2025, analysts see another small rise in car sales, but also some potential trouble spots. And, U.S. manufacturing activity contracted again in December, though only at a marginal pace as demand showed signs of improvement. That's according to the Purchasing Managers Index from the Institute for Supply Management. This was the ninth straight month of contraction,

with manufacturing dragged down by continued weakness in employment and backlogs of orders. And that's What's News for this week. Tomorrow you can look out for our weekly markets wrap up, What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday, we'll have a conversation courtesy of WSJ's Take on the Week podcast about last year's winners and losers in the stock market and what investors can expect in the year ahead. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienneme and Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmides.

Michael Laval wrote our theme music. Aisha El-Muslim is our development producer, Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors and Philana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Alex Osala. Thanks for listening. Thank you.