1 of 2 | Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a press conference after a weekly House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 20. Johnson met with former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for an event on Friday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
April 12 (UPI) — House Speaker Mike Johnson met with former President Donald Trump Friday as he faces threats to the gavel.
Johnson and Trump met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and held a press conference Friday afternoon to share remarks about election integrity.
Johnson, optimistic of Trump’s chance to take back the White House in November, said the GOP also expects to win back the Senate and grow the narrow House majority based on constituents’ primary concerns: election integrity and border security.
“I’ve been to 23 states now in the last several weeks, and everywhere we go, one of the first questions that people ask about is this issue of election integrity,” Johnson said, adding the No. 1 issue on voters’ minds is the southern border.
“Election integrity is tied to border security. President Biden has created a catastrophe and he did it by design,” Johnson said, while attributing violent crime and fentanyl overdoses in the United States to Biden’s border policy.
The speaker also announced House Republicans will introduce a bill that will require proof of citizenship to vote, require states to remove non-citizens from their existing voter rolls and provide access to databases from the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to enforce this.
Johnson’s meeting with the former president comes as pro-Trump House Republicans have voiced opposition to the speaker over his efforts to pass legislation with Democratic support.
On Wednesday, Trump took to social media to call on House Republicans to vote down reauthorization of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The effort to advance authorization was led by Johnson.
“Kill FISA,” Trump wrote.
Trump claims that FISA was used to spy on him during his 2016 campaign for president.
The House passed a modified version of the bill to reauthorize on Friday, voting 273-147 in favor. Democrats voted 147-59 while Republicans voted 126-88. The bill must now pass the Senate by April 19.
FISA would be reauthorized for two years if it passes the Senate as is.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, has motioned to oust Johnson as House speaker over working with Democrats on legislation to advance his budget plan.
“When Republicans took the majority in the House, we swore we would never pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) and we swore we would never pass minibusses,” Greene said in a statement last month. “Yet here we are under Speaker Johnson, three CRs later, a minibus, and another minibus on the horizon next week.”
When asked Friday if he would stand behind Johnson or Greene, Trump did not give a clear answer.
“I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump said of Johnson. “I’m sure that Marjorie understands that. She’s a very good friend of mine, and I know she has a lot of respect for the speaker.”
Asked whether he would support a Ukrainian aid package if Johnson were to move it forward, Trump said they are considering offering “a loan instead of a gift.”
“We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said, noting Europe needs to “step up” and “equalize” the United States’ support for Ukraine.
Trump also called Biden’s warning of a possible Iranian retaliation against Israel “pretty pathetic,” and said Iran wouldn’t attack Israel if he were president.
“This is a very dangerous period of time in our nation, and a big reason that it’s dangerous is that we have a president that is grossly incompetent,” he said.
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