The speaker faced criticism from right-wing lawmakers for moving to fund the government, and this was his first visit with the former president since he was elected.
A person familiar with the meeting claims that Speaker Mike Johnson paid a visit to former President Donald J. Trump on Monday night at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. This was Speaker Johnson’s first trip to see the front-runner in the Republican primary since he was unexpectedly promoted to the majority leader of the House last month.
The speaker’s visit to his Florida home came at a difficult time for him. Hard-right supporters are already furious with him for working with Democrats last week to pass legislation that prevented a government shutdown.
Under the condition of anonymity, the person confirmed the private meeting because they were not allowed to talk about it.
Although Mr. Trump may not have much influence over budget disputes in Washington, Mr. Johnson recognized he could not afford to have Mr. Trump publicly criticize him and intensify right-wing opposition to his leadership, as evidenced by his meeting with him just weeks after his election.
In order to strengthen his position and gain favor with the far right, Mr. Johnson has taken additional actions.
He made the announcement late last week that he would be making surveillance footage of the attack on the Capitol building publicly available. This is a move that far-right politicians and activists have been demanding in an effort to discredit the accounts of how Mr. Trump’s followers stormed the building in a violent attempt to overturn his election defeat.
Republican congressional leaders have had to develop a working relationship with Mr. Trump ever since his election in 2016. But Mr. Johnson is presenting himself as the first speaker to be in perfect lockstep with the former president, having defended him in two Senate impeachment trials and taken the lead in efforts to help him invalidate the 2020 election results.
The endorsement followed The Times’ report from 2015 claiming that Mr. Johnson had said on social media that Mr. Trump was dangerous and unfit to be president.
In a lengthy Facebook post on August 7, 2015, Mr. Johnson stated, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.” “I worry that he will break more things than mending. It is dangerous for a Commander in Chief to have a hot head like him by nature.
Mr. Johnson was in Florida for a fund-raising trip. Prior to last month, he had never held a high-level leadership position. The source familiar with the meeting between Mr. Trump and Representative Gus Bilirakis, a Republican from Florida, said that he stopped by Mar-a-Lago for the event.
