House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) has a naturally blunt demeanor, but he says a softer touch is the key to wooing rambunctious members in the super-slim House Republican majority.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuman beings are very emotional animals. If you don\u2019t manage the emotions, then you got cleanup to do,\u201d Emmer said.<\/p>\n
That was the task ahead for Emmer when he spoke to The Hill in late April, at the start of a week jam-packed with so many major bills sure to cause friction and looming deadlines that one member dubbed it \u201chell week.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of Republicans made demands, and Emmer didn\u2019t discourage them from voicing their positions: \u201cI pretty much tell the members, say whatever you want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an emotional thing. You got to get it out. Eventually, we\u2019re going to get you back,\u201d Emmer said. By the end of the bumpy week, all the measures in question passed.<\/p>\n
The No. 3 House Republican is tasked with being the chief vote-counter and vote-getter for the House GOP legislative agenda under President Trump. His two terms as whip \u2014 and before that, two winning cycles as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee \u2014 have allowed him to foster personal relationships across the ideological spectrum of the House Republican Conference, according to a dozen GOP lawmakers and aides who spoke to The Hill.<\/p>\n
That has made him a top contender for a higher leadership position, should Republicans lose control of the House in November and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) leave leadership.<\/p>\n
And if not after November, as plenty of members have started to speculate, there is potential for him to rise up further in the future.<\/p>\n
Emmer brushed off that chatter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to be the whip. We\u2019re going to succeed in November, and I would love the opportunity to come back and get even better at this job,\u201d Emmer said, adding that he gets \u201cirritated\u201d by those in politics who are planning for what they\u2019re going to do next. \u201cI didn\u2019t come here to be somebody. I came here to do something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pointed to a small sign on his desk in the style of one that once sat on former President Reagan\u2019s desk: \u201cThere is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn\u2019t mind who gets the credit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calling on Trump<\/p>\n
Over the past year and a half, \u201cdoing something\u201d has often meant late-night negotiations with holdouts in the Speaker\u2019s office or keeping open a vote for hours as leaders worked to flip members on the House floor. And sometimes, as with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of Trump\u2019s tax cut and spending priorities last year, it\u2019s required bringing in the president himself as a closer.<\/p>\n
That dynamic has earned Emmer some criticism. One Republican operative said Emmer was a \u201chorrible whip.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s whipped by the White House or the Speaker,\u201d the operative said.<\/p>\n
White House Director of Legislative Affairs James Braid, though, had a different assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTom Emmer has played a critical role in advancing the administration\u2019s priorities, including delivering the largest tax cut in American history. His leadership and partnership have been instrumental in delivering key votes for the President, and he remains a great ally to the administration,\u201d Braid said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Trump has publicly praised Emmer as a problem solver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I have a problem I call him up and he gets it done. He\u2019s a tough cookie,\u201d Trump said of Emmer at the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signing on Independence Day last year, suggesting Emmer should run for governor of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Emmer also dismissed the criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll always be able to find someone who says, \u2018Well, they shouldn\u2019t whip that, or the whip\u2019s office sucks at this,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to say whatever they\u2019re going to say, because this stupid place is built on this idea that we\u2019re in competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emmer\u2019s relationship with Trump has come leaps and bounds in the past few years \u2014 which would be crucial were he to mount a higher leadership bid.<\/p>\n
When Emmer threw his hat in the ring to be Speaker after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted in 2023, Trump \u2014 despite having a good conversation with Emmer in the days before \u2014\u00a0blasted him<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cGlobalist RINO\u201d who was \u201ctotally out-of-touch with Republican Voters.\u201d Emmer withdrew his nomination for Speaker hours later.<\/p>\n The two got to know each other better over the next year, and his standing in Trump World skyrocketed. By fall 2024, Emmer was prepping then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) for the vice presidential debate, playing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) in mock debates. And now, a \u201cLetters to Trump\u201d book of photos and messages to the president from world leaders and celebrities sits on a coffee table in Emmer\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Staying cool in the chaos<\/p>\n Emmer was remarkably cool ahead of a week that included contentious votes on reauthorizing foreign spy powers; passing a bill to fund the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security and advancing a separate measure to fund immigration enforcement; and passing the farm bill despite member demands over amendments and niche issues.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the NHL playoffs,\u00a0right?\u201d said Emmer,\u00a0a former hockey coach, in a late April interview. \u201cEverybody\u2019s complaining that \u2026 two of the top teams, Dallas and Minnesota, have to play each other in the first round. Well, guess what? You got to beat them all anyway if you\u2019re going to get to where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n The vote schedule, Emmer said, is the same thing. Weeks he thought in the past might be \u201ceasy\u201d turned out to be drama-filled headaches, such as \u201ccrypto week\u201d last year, when uproar over one provision led to the\u00a0longest vote<\/a>\u00a0in House history \u2014 breaking the record that was set the week before.<\/p>\n That kind of floor drama was once a rarity and an indication of major disorder, but it has become commonplace in the two-vote majority, where public rebellion has become part of the party\u2019s culture. But Emmer said the carefully choreographed votes of the past, when leaders had greater room for error, came with their own downsides.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that, \u2018Oh, it was so peaceful back then\u2019 \u2014 no. It was worse,\u201d Emmer said.<\/p>\n He recalled being in a monthly meeting for first-term members in 2015, when then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sat up front smoking a cigarette and drinking Diet Coke. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) spoke up to say he could not vote to raise the debt ceiling.<\/p>\n Boehner responded: \u201cYou\u2019ll be voting to raise the debt ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n That kind of strong-arming doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not our job to tell them what to do. It\u2019s our job to figure out what they can and can\u2019t do, and then advise Steve [Scalise] and Mike [Johnson] ahead of time, \u2018This is what you\u2019re going to be encountering,\u2019\u201d Emmer said. \u201cSometimes they take that, sometimes they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n The leadership teams are far more collegial and collaborative than in years past, aides said. Emmer said he has only been truly caught off guard by a vote loss on the floor once: In January, a handful of moderate Republicans\u00a0voted with Democrats<\/a>\u00a0to kill a series of GOP labor bills.<\/p>\n That agony of defeat is what drives Emmer more than the thrill of winning. \u201cThe feeling of failing is the worst feeling you will ever have. You learn more from it, but it\u2019s the worst feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n April\u2019s foreign spy powers reauthorization vote was a prime example of members\u2019 emotions complicating key votes. Several members demanding changes had rocky personal histories with intelligence agencies, including Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), whose personal cellphone was seized by the FBI in 2022 as part of the Justice Department\u2019s investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, and efforts to reverse the 2020 election.<\/p>\n Perry downplayed the significance of Emmer\u2019s emotional-management role even as he praised the whip.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t need a counselor. I can read,\u201d Perry said. \u201cWe just need to do the right thing around here, and we\u2019re not just going to be rolled by anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Emmer said that his communication has gotten better over his time in Congress. He thought he already had that skill given his track record trying cases as an attorney \u2014 but he said in the congressional venue, he was \u201ca terrible communicator.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere, you\u2019re not the lawyer, you\u2019re the witness. And it took me years to figure out how to be the witness,\u201d Emmer said.<\/p>\n Carter, for his part, agreed that current leadership is more engaged with members individually \u2014 and while they might not tell members how to vote, they \u201chave their own way of changing your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n These days, one of the hardest parts of the whip job is members\u2019 absences.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have lives. They get health issues, they have family issues, they\u2019ve got different things going on, and they can\u2019t make it all work all the time,\u201d Emmer said.<\/p>\n Emmer\u2019s record\u00a0<\/p>\n The sense that Emmer was too moderate thwarted his short-lived Speaker bid in 2023 \u2014 when members dinged Emmer for his 2022 vote in favor of a bill to codify same-sex marriage \u2014 and bubbled up at the end of last year, when right-wing social media influencers\u00a0brought up<\/a>\u00a0his comments from 2015 saying Somali immigrants were some of the \u201cfastest-assimilating populations.\u201d<\/p>\n Emmer said his vote for the Respect for Marriage Act was a \u201ctough decision,\u201d but a technical one, due to its provisions protecting religious liberty for those who did not want to facilitate same-sex marriage. Emmer feared that if Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) went after the Catholic school his kids went to for \u201cnot teaching all forms of marriage,\u201d any legal arguments he made pointing to the religious liberty provisions in the law would be undermined if he voted against the bill.<\/p>\n \u201cI disagreed with my church, too. Which, I think I\u2019m right still,\u201d Emmer said of the vote.<\/p>\n As for the posts about his Somali comments, Emmer said those come from those who \u201cmust view me as a rival, as a danger, so they try to seed the clouds with partial information.\u201d Emmer teamed up with Ellison, then a member of the House, to start the House Somalia Caucus in 2015 \u2014 which he said Ellison pitched to him as a way to help the Somali youth assimilate.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very worried about the radicalization of especially young males, because we aren\u2019t bringing them into our community,\u201d Emmer said. But he said it was clear that within months that Ellison was \u201cusing it for something else,\u201d and Emmer \u201cimmediately went the opposite direction\u201d \u2014 co-sponsoring a bill to give Congress more oversight of the refugee program and voting against funding for refugee resettlement.<\/p>\n