MIKE JOHNSON, the speaker of the House of Representatives, became all but guaranteed to keep his job for another two years after receiving Donald Trump’s backing on November 13th. Yet Mr Trump conspicuously withheld an endorsement in another congressional leadership contest the same day, and Senate Republicans elected John Thune as their next majority leader. The South Dakotan now has the unenviable task of managing a busy legislative schedule while also trying to reconcile the demands of his own caucus, an unruly lower chamber and an emboldened and mercurial president.

“IT IS CLEAR the next administration will try to do a U-turn and reverse much of this progress,” declared John Podesta, America’s climate tsar, at a UN climate summit held this week in Azerbaijan. His statement to the gathered greens and diplomats acknowledged a shared anxiety. Donald Trump has vowed to yank America out of the UN’s Paris climate agreement for a second time. Meanwhile conservative energy wonks around Mr Trump want him to make a push in three areas.

Donald Trump’s politics are so elastic that it is impossible to be certain what he means when he promises, as he did on election night, to “govern by a simple motto: promises made, promises kept”. Will he judge himself a failure if he does not end the war in Ukraine before he takes office?