Speaker Johnson to satisfy with Trump, gives Marjorie Taylor Greene advisory function as personal job teeters

WASHINGTON (AP) — His job on the road, Home Speaker Mike Johnson is dashing to Florida to satisfy with Donald Trump this week and has supplied far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene a seat on his personal “kitchen cupboard” as he attracts nearer to the MAGA forces that now dominate the GOP.

The sudden strikes Wednesday come because the Home hit a standstill, thrown into chaos as soon as once more.

The Home Republicans are tearing themselves aside, unable to work collectively to push social gathering priorities via Congress but watching their majority expend the times with out a cohesive agenda or a lot to point out for his or her 15 months in energy.

Johnson was unable to go a national security surveillance bill that was tanked by his personal Republican majority shortly after Trump pushed them to “kill” it. However on the similar time, the speaker was being warned off partnering with Democrats on that invoice and others, together with support for Ukraine, or risk Greene calling a snap vote that might oust him from the speaker’s workplace.

All of it leaves Johnson, simply six months on the job, in a similar place as Kevin McCarthy, the earlier Home speaker who was unceremoniously voted out of the speaker’s chair final fall — the primary in historical past to be toppled.

“We’re going to regroup and take into account subsequent steps,” Johnson, R-La., instructed reporters as he referred to as an impromptu assembly of Republicans within the Capitol basement.

Heading into the November election, Johnson has hitched his social gathering’s prospects and his personal political survival to Trump, believing the presumed presidential nominee and his MAGA supporters will enhance Republican lawmakers and guarantee they preserve management of the Home from Democrats.

On Friday, Trump and Johnson will seem for a press convention on “election integrity” on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago membership, based on a Trump marketing campaign official.

They’re anticipated to make a “joint announcement,” mentioned one other individual accustomed to the planning.

As soon as skeptical of Trump, Johnson turned a key supporter. He led one of the main legal challenges to the 2020 election within the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by the mob of Trump’s supporters making an attempt to cease the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

The problem of election integrity has been an obsession for Trump since he misplaced the 2020 election, regardless that elections are broadly safe and each state within the union licensed its 2020 outcomes that had been despatched to Congress on the day of the Capitol siege.

It is unclear what the Trump-Johnson announcement will contain, however since changing into the Home speaker Johnson has tried to maintain an in depth relationship with Trump.

Johnson revived a Home committee’s efforts to reinvestigate the findings of the Home Choose Committee on the Jan. 6 assault as Trump requires pardoning these concerned within the bloody mob siege. Greater than 1,300 individuals have been charged in reference to the assault, as rioters fought police, stormed the Capitol and roamed the halls. 5 individuals died within the siege and its instant aftermath.

Trump and Johnson speak recurrently, together with on Tuesday night time, because the speaker works to maintain his personal critics, notably Greene, at bay.

A right-wing Republican from Georgia near Trump, Greene has filed a motion to vacate the speaker, a procedural device that enables a fast vote on his management, and now hangs over Johnson’s each transfer.

Johnson met with Greene for almost an hour Wednesday on the Capitol, and he or she mentioned the change was “direct and passionate.”

She is very crucial of Johnson, her grievances outlined in a five-page letter despatched to colleagues this week, and specifically opposes serving to Ukraine because it fights the Russian invasion, and warned Johnson to not carry an support package deal for Ukraine to a vote.

Greene additionally rallied towards extending provisions of the International Intelligence Surveillance Act, often called FISA, forward of Wednesday’s failed vote, regardless of Johnson’s push to have it accepted.

Simply earlier than the vote, Trump additionally weighed in on social media, telling Republicans to vote towards it. “Kill FISA,” Trump wrote in all capital letters. Trump mentioned the regulation was used to spy on him, however a former adviser to his 2016 presidential marketing campaign was focused over potential ties to Russia underneath a distinct part of the surveillance regulation. With a threadbare majority, Johnson can lose no a couple of or so Republican on any vote, however almost 20 bolted.

Johnson supplied to present Greene a spot on a proposed “kitchen cupboard” of advisors to the speaker, she mentioned after the almost hour-long session.

However Greene instructed reporters she would “wait and see” about his provide, however she was extra all for how he handles a number of points earlier than Congress, notably support for Ukraine and the FISA vote.

“I defined to him, this isn’t private,” she mentioned. “However he has not performed the job that we elected him to do.”

Greene has mentioned that Johnson has thrown the Republican majority into “chaos,” pointing specifically to the government spending bills that he handed to forestall a federal shutdown over Republican objections.

“That’s chaos for a Republican majority: sending his Republican colleagues and members again dwelling to their districts, having to marketing campaign on a Republican Home that funded the Biden administration,” she mentioned late Tuesday on the Capitol.

Different Republicans, even those that ousted McCarthy, have been cool to Greene’s effort to oust Johnson, unenthusiastic about going via the turmoil of making an attempt to elect a brand new speaker.

Final fall, it took Republicans virtually a month to interchange McCarthy with Johnson, a spectacle that put the social gathering’s dysfunction on show in rounds of failed votes and basically shut down all different Home enterprise.

Greene has not publicly mentioned when she could carry up the movement to vacate and instructed reporters she doesn’t but have a “purple line” for mentioning the motion.

Johnson’s deliberate assembly with Trump was first reported on CNN.

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Related Press reporters Farnoush Amiri and Eric Tucker contributed to this report. Colvin reported from New York.