The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, traveled to Florida on Friday to huddle with Donald Trump in the latest sign of the hard-right presidential candidate’s informal, yet undisputed leadership of the party.
Little was said about the agenda for the gathering, other than it will cover “election integrity” — Trump code words for his attacks on US democracy based around the false claim of widespread voter fraud.
A news conference was scheduled for 4:30 pm (2030 GMT).
Trump was ejected from the White House in 2020 by Democrat Joe Biden and was shunned by most senior Republicans for his attempts to overturn the election result, culminating with a riot by his supporters through the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But Trump has regained his political momentum on the right as he seeks a shock return to the presidency this November and he exercises a powerful grip in Congress — notably steering the Republican blockage of US war aid to Ukraine.
For Johnson, the trek from Washington to see Trump comes as he tries to save himself from a rebellion on the far-right of his party, which threatens to eject him from the speakership.
Johnson, a longtime Trump loyalist, is walking a tightrope as he tries to balance the demands from his party’s relative moderates and the Democrats to pass bills, including the aid to embattled Ukraine.
The result so far has largely been paralysis in the House.
For Ukraine, the results have been dire, with ammunition-strapped forces increasingly unable to fend off Russian bombardments of the frontlines and civilian targets.
Biden has implored Congress to approve a bill worth $60 billion in war aid. But despite Republicans and Democrats coming together in the Senate, Johnson has so far refused even to set a vote in the House.
Trump and his closest congressional allies have turned sharply on pro-Western Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion for more than two years.
In his latest comments Wednesday, Johnson remained vague about his plans on Ukraine, saying, “There are a lot of different ideas.”
