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House Speaker Mike Johnson has once again met with prospective GOP nominee Donald Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago estate following the former president’s visit to Capitol Hill earlier this week.
Johnson did not divulge details about the visit but indicated the two met to plot a path to victory in November.
“It was great to meet with President Trump today at Mar-a-Lago,” Johnson posted on X. “Our Party is united, and working together, I am confident we will send President Trump back to the White House, win back the Senate, and grow our House Republican majority!”
It was great to meet with President Trump today at Mar-a-Lago. Our Party is united, and working together, I am confident we will send President Trump back to the White House, win back the Senate, and grow our House Republican majority! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/YsjLBsw5Qw
— Mike Johnson (@MikeJohnson) June 17, 2024
Two months have passed since Johnson’s last visit to Mar-a-Lago, during which he was under threat of losing his speakership to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump openly supported Johnson, and Greene’s attempt to remove him was unsuccessful. In return, Johnson showed his support for Trump by appearing in Manhattan criminal court during Trump’s trial, where Trump was ultimately convicted, CBS News reported.
“President Trump and I have constant dialogue about the plans for the election cycle and then the emerging plans about what we’ll do after we win the election cycle,” Johnson said Friday ahead of his Monday meeting with Trump. “And I think we will, I think he’ll be the next president. And I think we’ll have a bigger majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate.”
Johnson said Republicans are “planning accordingly” for that victory, “not to put the cart before the horse but to think very strategically about how we’ll use that time effectively.” The House speaker told reporters that he and Trump would discuss which GOP candidates to endorse.
Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House and Democrats hold a similarly small majority in the Senate.
Former New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who refused to back then-GOP nominee Donald Trump in 2016, now says she’s definitely on the Trump Train.
Ayotte, who is running for governor in what has become the most in-play state for Republicans along the deep-blue East Coast, spoke about her conversion in an exclusive interview with Fox News.
“Under Joe Biden, things cost more, and we’re less safe. There’s no question that we are worse off than we were than when President Trump was in office,” Ayotte told the outlet. “I’m supporting President Trump because I believe we need to change courses for the nation.”
Support for the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, given his significant influence over the party, appears to be a straightforward decision for nearly all Republicans running for elective office in 2024. For Ayotte, however, aligning with the nominee carries particularly significant implications.
Ayotte, a rising star in the Republican Party in 2016, was a former state attorney general and first-term senator, with a growing national security profile as she sought re-election. Just before the 2016 election, she withdrew her support for Trump due to the “Access Hollywood” controversy. In a years-old video, Trump made extremely crude comments about grabbing women without their consent.
“I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women,” Ayotte said at the time. She went on to lose her reelection to the Senate by a thin margin of around 1,000 votes. She was defeated by then-Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan.
However, Ayotte outperformed Trump in New Hampshire, as Hillary Clinton edged the White House winner by less than 3,000 votes.