House Republicans gave Mike Johnson the speaker's gavel on Friday – along with a warning. Nine GOP lawmakers at first either abstained from voting for Johnson or voted for a different person for speaker.

The policy was left out of last week’s proposed package but Rep. Johnson quietly included the ban in the final rules.

WASHINGTON -- This time was supposed to be different.

Johnson, of Louisiana, has been working diligently to prevent defeat, spending New Year’s Day at Mar-a-Lago as he positions himself alongside Trump. The speaker often portrays himself as the “quarterback” who will be executing the political plays called by the “coach,” the president-elect.

Two holdouts were convinced to change their minds and support Johnson after all the first-ballot votes were initially cast.

The speaker election was on track to get deadlocked after a small handful of House Republicans rebelled against Johnson's candidacy, until two holdouts flipped their votes in the final hour

The House voted Friday to reelect Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., after multiple Republicans initially did not cast a vote for him in what became a tight contest spurred by pushback from a small, but influential group of Republicans against the speaker, leading to President-elect Donald Trump getting involved in discussions.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Mike Johnson lose job as House Speaker? Pivotal House vote looms. Ukraine's military intelligence agency said its naval drones hit three Russian helicopters and destroyed two of them during an operation this week.