Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson reunited with Donald Trump for the first time since taking the gavel when the two attended an event at Mar-a-Lago hosted by Florida Representative Gus Bilirakis.
The new speaker publicly endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid last week when he told CNBC’s Squawk Box program, “I’m all in for President Trump.”
On Monday evening, the former president and Johnson attended Bilirakis’ fundraiser at Trump’s swanky Palm Beach, Florida, club Mar-a-Lago.
Johnson was fundraising in Florida when he stopped by Trump’s compound, which also serves as his residence.
On October 25, Johnson found himself rising from a regular member of the House of Representatives to the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, following the impeachment of Representative Kevin McCarthy and weeks of chaos among the Republicans who chose his replacement.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (left) met with former President Donald Trump (right) at Mar-a-Lago during a fundraiser on Monday evening, according to multiple reports
Johnson, a devout Christian, wasn’t always a supporter of Trump — but he did play a key role in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The approval of the new chairman and the meeting with Trump seem to show that he has discovered that he needs Trump in his corner if the Republicans in the House of Representatives have any chance of maintaining their narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
“I expect he (Trump) will be our nominee, and we need to make (President Joe) Biden a one-term president,” Johnson told CNBC last week, adding that he is one of the “closest allies that president Trump has in Congress. ‘
Trump, who faces more than 90 felony counts in criminal cases in four states, is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican primaries.
Rep. Bilirakis (R-Fla.) held the event Monday night at Trump’s club, where Johnson and the ex-president met.
Johnson was among lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
He also played a key role in helping build support for the amicus brief in support of a longshot lawsuit by Texas officials seeking to support Trump’s 2020 Electoral College counting challenge.
The ex-president and speaker of the House of Representatives gathered Monday night at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago hosted by Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis.
How much Johnson’s approval last Tuesday helps Trump remains to be seen.
Speaker Johnson was little known before he was elevated to speakership last month and remains little known outside Washington political circles.
And he expressed his support on the day it emerged that he had once condemned Trump on Facebook.
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and moral center that we so desperately need back in the White House,” Johnson wrote in 2015 in messages found by the New York Times.
His words were challenged in the comments and he replied: ‘I’m afraid he might break more things than he fixes. He is naturally hot-headed, and that is a dangerous trait in a commander-in-chief.”
Johnson was a lawmaker in Louisiana at the time.
He then wondered whether Trump could bomb a head of state just because he showed disrespect to him.
“I’m just kidding about this,” he wrote. “I just don’t think he has the attitude to be president.”
Johnson isn’t the only one who changes course when it suits him.
Trump’s administration was filled with officials who supported other candidates or were openly hostile to him in 2016.
And Johnson served on Trump’s defense team during the president’s first impeachment trial.
“During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won over me and millions of my fellow Republicans,” Johnson told the New York Times.
“When I got to know him personally, shortly after we both arrived in Washington in 2017, I came to appreciate the person he is and the qualities of him that made him the extraordinary president that he was.”
In his CNBC interview, he also defended Trump’s position on the 2020 election.
Trump “just felt like he was cheated in the last election,” he said.
Democrats were quick to highlight “MAGA Mike’s” hardline views.
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said: “MAGA Mike Johnson sees Trump as yet another anti-abortion and election-denying extremist who will do everything in his power to pursue a radical, anti-freedom agenda if he is re-elected president.
Even though MAGA Mike once admitted that he thought Trump was ‘dangerous’ and ‘unfit’ to serve, he is so determined to chip away at Americans’ freedoms and undermine Social Security and Medicare that he is still willing to is to support Trump.’