Trump insists he ‘gets along very well’ with Speaker Johnson as his ‘very good friend’ Marjorie Taylor Greene tries to oust him over disagreements over Ukraine aid and controversial ‘spy tool’ FISA
Donald Trump said he ‘stands’ with Mike Johnson and he has done a ‘very good job’ as the pair appeared at a joint press conference amid threats of another motion to impeach the speaker.
Johnson’s future is in an uncertain position after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump ally, launched a motion to oust him last month.
She hasn’t called it to the floor, leaving the threat hanging over Johnson’s head.
“He’s doing a really good job under tough circumstances,” the former president said at Mar-a-Lago when asked if he supports top affiliate MTG’s efforts to boot Johnson.
‘He does about as well as you will. And I’m sure Marjorie understands that, and she’s a very good friend of mine. And I know she has a lot of respect for the speaker,’ Trump claimed.
Donald Trump said he ‘stands’ with Mike Johnson and he has done a ‘very good job’ as the pair appeared at a joint press conference amid threats of another motion to impeach the speaker
Trump also said he is “looking at” Johnson’s expected Ukraine proposal, putting him at odds with Greene and other hardline members of the House of Representatives who are outright opposed to further aid in the fight against Russia.
“We’re looking at it right now and we’re talking about it,” he told reporters.
“We’re thinking of doing it in the form of a loan rather than just a gift — we keep giving out billions and billions of dollars worth of gifts.”
Johnson’s appearance alongside Trump comes after he helped fuel the speaker’s efforts to pass an overhaul of a spy tool earlier this week.
The bill was finally passed on Friday morning. Johnson made a deal with Trump and his allies to renew it for only two years instead of five, so they could hash out more reforms under a potential Trump administration.
‘KILL FISA IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPYED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! DJT,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social ahead of a failed rules vote to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA earlier this week.
Another part of the law that is not up for reauthorization — Title 1 — was used to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 2016 when he was suspected of communicating with the Russians. Trump reauthorized FISA in 2018.
At the press conference on Friday, Trump had a more subdued opposition to the surveillance tool.
‘I’m not a big fan of FISA. But I said to everyone I said, do what you want. They put a lot of checks and balances on and I guess it’s down to two years now, so it would come in the early part of my administration.’
Section 702 specifically allows the US government to monitor foreign nationals with suspected terrorist connections who are not on US soil, even if the party on the other side of such communications is a US citizen in America.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy introduces the new bill in Congress, the SAVE Act
Johnson rankled hardliners on Friday by being the final vote to kill an amendment that would have required intelligence officers to obtain a warrant to look at communications involving anyone on American soil.
That way, if Trump wins the election, Congress can more thoroughly reform FISA during his presidency.
The presser is focused on election legislation to prevent illegal immigrants from voting. It is already against the law for them to vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy introduces the new bill in Congress, the SAVE Act.
Notably, Roy, R-Texas, was not at Mar-a-Lago for the news conference. He and Trump are not friendly; Roy endorsed Ron DeSantis for president over him.
The bill aims to close any loopholes that allow people to register to vote without proof of U.S. citizenship or photo ID, require all 50 states to remove illegal immigrants from their voter rolls, add penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who register non-citizens to vote and require proof of citizenship for those who vote abroad.
“It looks like we’re all sane,” Johnson said at the news conference.
“There are some Democrats who don’t want to do that. We believe that one of their designs. One of the reasons for this open border that everybody is asking all over the country, why would they allow the chaos, why the violence? Because they want to turn these people into voters.’
Penalties for non-citizen immigrants who are caught voting include deportation or prison, yet they avoid providing personal information out of fear or being caught by immigration authorities.
However, it is possible to vote illegally as an undocumented immigrant.
Most ballots require some form of proof of identity to register to vote, such as a driver’s license. Not all of these IDs require citizenship.
In 2016, during Trump’s first campaign, when he first began making claims that undocumented immigrants were voting, the liberal Brennan Center for Justice examined 23.5 million ballots in 42 jurisdictions for evidence of illegal immigrant voting and found 30 such migrant votes.