Johnson will face his first House speaker election since he first won the job in October 2023, but during the fight over continuing resolutions earlier this month, some House Republicans expressed doubt about whether they would support him. Gingrich, himself a former House speaker, offered his praise and hit at “totally destructive” Republicans while on the radio show The Cats Roundtable with John Catsimatidis.

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“Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, is doing an extraordinary job. I tell everybody, I was a pretty effective speaker. I could never do his job. He has no margins. Any two or three members can rebel at any moment,” Gingrich said.

The 2012 presidential candidate also heralded Johnson for avoiding a government shutdown by negotiating and rallying support for last week’s continuing resolution.

Gingrich stressed that Republicans should stay focused on key issues, such as tax cuts, but also be a unified front as the GOP takes over control in the Senate and the White House next month.

“They need a Republican unity program for the next two years. These guys who wake up every morning and say, ‘I’m going to vote no. What’s the issue?’ are totally destructive and hand the House over to the Democrats,” Gingrich said. “So they need to start this new year with a pledge that every Republican is going to stick together – they’re going to be a single team.”

The House speaker race will be held on Friday at the start of the 119th Congress. It will be one of the first tests of how unified or fractured the House GOP is with its narrow majority. Republicans will have a narrow 219-215 majority at the start of the Congress.

The speaker election is often a formality, with one simple round of voting, but in 2023, a pair of prolonged elections, in January and October, lengthened the usually quick process.