Elise Stefanik Bitterly Blames Speaker Johnson for Her Cabinet Nomination Crumbling: Report

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It was widely reported that Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was enthusiastic about serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, so when President Donald Trump pulled her nomination, it makes sense that she would be disappointed. But a new article by Annie Karni at The New York Times says the New York congresswoman blames Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), not Trump, for her misfortune.

In late March, news broke that the White House was withdrawing Stefanik’s nomination, after weeks of delays for her confirmation hearing amid ongoing chatter about GOP woes about their razor-thin majority in the House.

With Stefanik still on the roster, Republicans had a 218-213 majority at that time, with four vacant seats. Two were vacant because Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) and Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) died, and the other two belonged to Florida Republicans: former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who withdrew his bid for Attorney General resigned amid a scandal involving accusations he sexually trafficked a 17-year-old girl and other activity that was the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, and former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who was confirmed as National Security Adviser and has been embroiled in the Signalgate scandal (the first one, not the subsequent ones that have focused more on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth).

Both Florida seats were on the ballot for a special election, lean heavily Republican, and were in fact won by the GOP nominees.

But Republicans did not know for sure they would retain those seats. Stefanik had yet to resign from her congressional seat, and the decision was made to send her back to continue representing the people of New York’s 21st congressional district. Trump posted on Truth Social he had asked her to “stay in Congress” and called her “absolutely FANTASTIC.”

According to Karni’s report, Stefanik was eagerly anticipating the “fairly cushy job” of ambassador to the UN, including perks like a “$15 million Manhattan penthouse” for a residence. She had taken a farewell tour of her district, given up her House leadership position, packed up her congressional office, and waited for her hearing, expecting to “sail through,” in contrast to the bumpy ride for some other Trump nominees.

Instead, Stefanik was relegated back to the Rayburn House Office Building “amid the peanuts” — the styrofoam packing material littering the floor of her office as movers unpacked what had just been packed up a few weeks ago.

“Ms. Stefanik’s plight seemed to crystallize in one succinct cautionary tale the limits of loyalty in the MAGA universe,” wrote Karni. “Even one of the president’s most stalwart defenders, an effective ally since his first impeachment trial, ultimately did not get what she had long been promised.”

But Stefanik is not directing her frustration at that betrayed loyalty at Trump, reported the Times. Instead, she’s “pinning most of the blame for what happened” on Johnson, with whom she was “once close.”

The Times described how her relationship with the speaker “has completely disintegrated since her return,” and observers worry the “clash” between the two “could turn ugly” in upcoming battles over the budget and items on Trump’s agenda.

“Behind the scenes,” Karni wrote, “the relationship has collapsed.”

Stefanik went so far as to accuse Johnson of lying when he told Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman he was “having conversations” with her and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) about running for New York governor.

“That is not true,” she wrote in a tweet Tuesday — a rare public rebuke of a House GOP colleague, much less one in leadership.

Johnson called Stefanik “immediately” after that tweet, and then corrected himself to reporters at the Capitol.

Contributing to the bitterness is Johnson’s foot-dragging in restoring Stefanik’s leadership spot. She had given up her position as House GOP conference chair, the 4th highest ranked Republican, and had served on the Intelligence Committee. The Speaker had promised to fix that for her in a three-way call with the president after the collapse of her ambassador nomination.

It ended up taking weeks to put Stefanik back in House leadership, and Johnson still hasn’t figured out how to get her back on the Intelligence Committee — which would entail kicking out another Republican to keep the membership even — or soothe her frustrations by finding a spot on another committee that was meaningful to her.

Sources close to Stefanik told the Times that she “was always aware of the math problem” of the GOP’s narrow majority, “[b]ut her senior aides now blame Mr. Johnson for avoiding a direct conversation with her about his concerns over the vote margin,” and instead “he quietly tried to delay her hearing and poison the well against her nomination along with other secretive moves to slow walk it while saying he supported it.”