Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the most-powerful elected Republican in the nation, second in line to the presidency, is under fire after appearing to subordinate himself to the criminally-indicted and criminally-convicted one-term ex-president, as he glowingly delivered a report of his Thursday meeting with Donald Trump.
Trump “said very complementary things about all of us. We had sustained applause. He said I’m doing a very good job. We’re grateful for that,” Speaker Johnson told reporters (vide below) after he and members of his Republican conference met with the ex-president barely blocks from where the January 6, 2021 insurrection Trump incited took place. Thursday marks the first time since that fatal and violent day Trump has returned to Capitol Hill.
The Speaker of the House is the co-head of a co-equal branch of the federal government. Donald Trump is no longer president, so is no longer head of the executive branch.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik told reporters it was a “very successful special political conference with our special guest, President Donald J. Trump.”
“Johnson has openly embraced Trump, who was crucial in supporting him when he faced the threat of being ousted … by conservative GOP House hard-liners, saying coordination with Trump is important heading into November’s election and a potential second Trump presidency,” ABC News reports.
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“I think it’s important for the country, to have us, to have close coordination,” Johnson also said Wednesday. “I believe he’ll have, can be, the most consequential president of the modern era, because we have to fix effectively every area of public policy.”
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who has written nine books on the American presidency, slammed Johnson.
“Speaker of the House is incumbent elected officer of coequal branch of American government—shouldn’t feel need to publicly pronounce himself ‘grateful’ to an ex-President for saying he and party colleagues are doing a ‘good job.’ ”
“Half the US Congress is now weaponized, obstructing justice, and abusing power to help trump launder away his criminality, malfeasance, and failure—while also conflating government business with his campaign and insurrection with government,” observed Condé Nast legal affairs editor Luke Zaleski. “Trump owns the House. Is America next?”
Former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer noted, “Trump’s supporters almost murdered these folks less than four years ago.”
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) added, “The guy who found ‘very fine people on both sides’ of a neo-Nazi rally thinks Mike Johnson is doing a good job. And Mike Johnson is proud of that. These people.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks below or at this link.
Mike Johnson says that during the House GOP meeting with Trump today, Trump “said very complementary things about all of us. We had sustained applause. he said I’m doing a very good job. We’re grateful for that.” pic.twitter.com/MO29NPtrto
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 13, 2024
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The post ‘He Said I’m Doing a Very Good Job’: Mike Johnson Slammed Over Remarks on Trump Meeting appeared first on The New Civil Rights Movement.