House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and former President Donald Trump are scheduled to hold a joint press conference on April 12 regarding “election integrity,” a source familiar with the matter told The Epoch Times.
CNN first reported the joint presser, which will be at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
No further details have been publicized.
Election integrity has been a key issue for Republicans since the 2020 election and is a focus of the Republican National Committee under the new leadership of Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump.
“When you talk about election integrity, it is vital. It is the number one thing that we are focused on, aside from getting out the vote, which, of course, Donald Trump himself will do for us,” Ms. Trump said.
The presser comes as Mr. Johnson is facing a threat to his speakership because of a motion filed last month by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
Following a meeting with Mr. Johnson on April 10, Ms. Greene reiterated her frustration with his tenure as speaker.
She told reporters that she’d told Mr. Johnson he had broken the House GOP’s “trust.”
Ms. Greene remained ambiguous about whether she would bring the motion to vacate to the floor. She said that the bill to reauthorize the controversial Section 702 of FISA, which allows surveillance abroad that has come under fire in what critics say is spying on Americans, and assistance for Ukraine are unacceptable, though she said she did not give him “a red line.”
She said Mr. Johnson would not say if he would bring Ukraine aid to the floor even though Mr. Johnson previously said he wanted to help Ukraine.
Ms. Greene lamented that Mr. Johnson’s “leadership has been completely opposite” of President Trump’s policies.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Johnson responded to the motion filed by Ms. Greene to strip him of the gavel. He warned that such an effort would bring “chaos in the House.”
Mr. Johnson acknowledged Ms. Greene’s frustration with the appropriations for fiscal year 2024 but noted that the GOP does not have much leverage even with its one-vote House majority, the only part of government they currently control.
“We are not going to be able to do big transformational changes that we’d like, that we know are necessary. And for example, the budget and then spending, we’re not going to get all of our priorities,” he said.
“We will never get 100 percent of what we want and believe is necessary for the country because that’s the reality,” he continued. “It’s a matter of math and in the Congress, the numbers, the votes that are available.”
Mr. Johnson said it would not have been worth shutting down the government as doing so would mean that Border Patrol, troops, and TSA agents would not get paid.
Shutting down the government, he said, “would put a lot of pressure on the American people, the American economy, at a very desperate time. We can’t have large sections of the border being totally uncontrolled.”
The motion to vacate “wouldn’t be helpful,” Mr. Johnson said. “It would be chaos in the House.”
President Trump has yet to weigh in on Ms. Greene’s motion to vacate. Mr. Johnson, like Ms. Greene, has endorsed the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
Ms. Greene said she talked with President Trump on the morning of April 10, though she did not specify what was said.
The press conference also comes just a week before President Trump’s trial in New York related to his payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Ahead of the trial, which is one of four the former president is facing, the president has been holding rallies and fundraising.
Janice Hisle, Aldgra Fredly, Joseph Lord, and Stacy Robinson contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
