Speaker Mike Johnson may not have a working majority in Congress, but his job is similar to that of Republicans before him in at least one way: His duties include the difficult task of managing Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Johnson will travel to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, on Friday to attend what the speaker called an “important election integrity announcement.” No further details were revealed.
The two men had planned to meet for a political meeting, but Mr. Johnson’s team suggested a joint public appearance on an issue close to Mr. Trump’s heart, according to two people familiar with the planning.
It will give Mr. Johnson the opportunity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr. Trump at a precarious moment in his term as he works to wrangle a tiny and deeply divided majority around a legislative agenda that many of them oppose — all of it , as he confronts the threat of the ouster of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican from Georgia and a vital Trump ally. Making matters worse, Mr. Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is helping to undermine this agenda.
Still, Republicans generally think it’s good and politically helpful to be around Mr. Trump.
“It’s about Trump hugging Johnson,” former speaker Newt Gingrich said of Friday’s joint appearance. “Here’s Trump saying, ‘He’s the speaker, I’m his friend, we’re together.’ This is a pretty important thing for him. He just has to hold on.”
Mr. Trump viewed Mr. Johnson, who defended him in two impeachment trials and played a key role in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as something of a friend, people close to him said. He likes the Republican from Louisiana and he likes his loyalty even more. (He particularly appreciated that Mr. Johnson quickly endorsed him after he became speaker, a move always opposed by his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.) The two speak regularly, and Mr. Trump has even won some of the congressional endorsements , which Mr Johnson has been pressuring him for.
However, when a hug looks like this, it’s not clear that it’s that much better than the alternative.
Mr. Trump commented earlier this week on legislation introduced by Mr. Johnson to extend an expiring warrantless surveillance law that national security officials say is critical to counterterrorism and intelligence gathering. Mr. Trump urged lawmakers to “kill” the law underlying the program, and ultraconservatives in the House banded together to block it from passing the House, resulting in an embarrassing defeat for Mr. Johnson.
The speaker was scheduled to try again to push the measure through the House on Friday before boarding a plane with Mr. Trump for his audience.
The former president also said it was “stupid” for the United States to give aid to Ukraine and railed against it, even though Mr. Johnson has made clear his top priority is to put forward a bill to provide an infusion of American military aid Kiev.
The dynamic means that even if the two present a united front at Mar-a-Lago, they will disagree on many issues they could be questioned about. Such is life with Mr. Trump. And for Republican speakers, it has always been that way.
For a brief period after Mr. Trump first arrived at the White House in 2017, he let Republican leaders on Capitol Hill handle their legislative efforts, which included an attempt to repeal Obamacare and seek tax cuts. Former Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had refused to run for Mr. Trump, benefited from the fact that the new president had a vested interest in the success of a shared Republican agenda.
Still, navigating the relationship required both hand-holding and hand-wringing over who would be the last person in Mr. Trump’s ear. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump threatened to veto a major spending bill that had been approved by Congress. Mr. Ryan had to work hard to convince him to sign it.
“It was these fire drills where you had to send five or six people to bring him back,” recalls Brendan Buck, who served as Mr. Ryan’s top adviser. “You will always be fighting against the last person who spoke to him, against emotional whims, against what he read. It’s a constant battle that you always have to fight.”
That same year, Mr. Trump nearly killed a version of the surveillance law he was scuttling this week when he tweeted criticism of it, breaking with his administration — apparently after watching a segment on Fox News. “Everyone was calling him, the national security adviser was rushing over, people were rushing to the White House,” Mr. Buck recalled. Mr. Trump ultimately retracted his post 90 minutes later.
But Mr. Trump now has less influence over the Republican agenda in Congress — it doesn’t belong to him. And he is not surrounded by a national security apparatus that could help him stay on a course more consistent with that of party leaders in Congress.
As he became more established in the White House, Mr. Trump also began to rely more on his own advice and less on guidance from congressional leaders. He was not interested in following Mr Ryan’s advice, for example, to avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2018.
Mr. McCarthy spent years cultivating his relationship with Mr. Trump, even going so far as to cull his favorite Starburst flavors to gain favor. He visited the former president at Mar-a-Lago after the mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to smooth over any differences.
Mr. McCarthy had a checkered relationship with Mr. Trump during his brief tenure as speaker. He managed to steer some of Mr Trump’s supporters during the 2022 midterm elections, and his greatest success may have been silencing the former president during his negotiations with the White House over the debt ceiling – Mr Trump waited until the Deal signed was to be criticized.
Mr. McCarthy benefited primarily from timing: The former president was not yet the presumptive Republican nominee during his time in office and was less involved in the agenda in Washington.
Mr. Johnson could experience the worst of both worlds: Mr. Trump is not the president, so he has no shared interest in the Republican speaker’s legislative success, but at this stage of the presidential campaign he is set up to potentially complicate anything, what he is trying to do. Mr. Trump continues to have so much influence over Republicans on Capitol Hill that his opposition can be enough to completely pass a bill, and Mr. Johnson hasn’t had as much time to solidify their relationship.
“Johnson may have had the toughest speaking role of anyone since the beginning of the Civil War,” Mr. Gingrich said. “His main goal must be to hold the system together to achieve an election in which Trump increases Republican turnout.”
People close to Mr. Trump said he valued Mr. Johnson’s political insights and had at times given him endorsements. Mr. Johnson campaigned hard to support Representative Mike Bost, Republican of Illinois, over Darren Bailey, a competitive challenger who is running a spirited MAGA campaign. It was difficult for Mr. Trump to find that endorsement, people familiar with it said, but he ultimately did so at Mr. Johnson’s urging.
For her part, Ms. Greene said she would not back down from her criticism of Mr. Johnson or abandon the threat to oust him, even if Mr. Trump gave the speaker a public boost.
“Things like that don’t bother me,” she said of Mr. Trump, who hosted an event with Mr. Johnson. Of the speaker, she added: “Right now he doesn’t have my support.”
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2024-04-12 01:49:19
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