Speaker Mike Johnson to meet with Donald Trump amid threats to his job
With his job in jeopardy, House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to meet with former President Donald Trump with a speech on "election integrity" Friday.
WASHINGTON — With his job in jeopardy, House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to head to Florida on Friday to meet with the one man who could save his precarious speakership: the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump.
Trump and Johnson, R-La., plan to deliver remarks about “election integrity,” said several sources, one of whom said the two Republicans will talk about legislation focused on preventing noncitizens from voting. That’s already illegal — and very rare — but Trump and many of his allies have falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants affected the 2020 election and warned they could do so this year.
"Congress has a role with regard to federal elections. We want to make absolutely certain that anybody [who] votes is actually an American citizen," Johnson told reporters on Friday. "We need to make sure the federal law is clear on that matter, and make sure we actually have election integrity because it's the biggest concern of the American people right now."
Johnson is making a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s golf resort in Palm Beach, as he faces an ongoing threat to his job from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia firebrand and Trump loyalist who has ratcheted up attacks on him less than six months into the job.
If Trump stays silent, Greene may see it as a sufficient opening. But she is unlikely to defy Trump if he pushes for Johnson to keep his job and pressures her not to force a vote to oust him, known as a motion to vacate.
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