Speaker Mike Johnson could not have a practical majority in Congress, however his job is much like the Republicans who preceded him in at the least one respect: The duties embody the tough process of managing Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Johnson on Friday will journey to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida property, to hitch him for what the speaker has billed as a “main announcement on election integrity.” No additional particulars have been forthcoming.
The 2 males had been planning to get collectively for a political assembly, however Mr. Johnson’s group advised a joint public look on a subject Mr. Trump cares deeply about, based on two folks accustomed to the planning.
It can afford Mr. Johnson the chance to face shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Trump at a precarious second in his speakership, as he works to corral a minuscule and deeply divided majority round a legislative agenda lots of them oppose — all whereas going through the specter of an ouster from Consultant Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican and ride-or-die Trump ally. Making issues even trickier, Mr. Trump, the previous president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee, helps to undermine that agenda.
Even so, Republicans usually think about it good and politically useful to be bodily close to Mr. Trump.
“It’s about Trump embracing Johnson,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich mentioned of Friday’s joint look. “That is Trump saying, ‘He’s the speaker, I’m his buddy, we’re collectively.’ That’s a reasonably necessary factor for him. He simply has to endure.”
Mr. Trump does consider Mr. Johnson, who defended him in two impeachment trials and performed a key function in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as one thing like a buddy, folks near him mentioned. He likes the Louisiana Republican, and likes his loyalty much more. (He particularly appreciated that Mr. Johnson shortly endorsed him after turning into speaker, a transfer that his predecessor Kevin McCarthy at all times resisted). The 2 communicate repeatedly, and Mr. Trump has even come round on a few of the congressional endorsements Mr. Johnson has lobbied him on.
Nonetheless, if that is what an embrace seems like, it’s not clear that it’s so a lot better than the choice.
Mr. Trump earlier this week weighed in in opposition to laws that Mr. Johnson put ahead to increase an expiring warrantless surveillance regulation that nationwide safety officers say is essential to preventing terrorism and gathering intelligence. Mr. Trump urged lawmakers to “kill” the regulation undergirding this system, and ultraconservatives within the Home banded collectively to dam it from coming to the Home flooring in an embarrassing defeat for Mr. Johnson.
The speaker was set on Friday to attempt once more to push the measure by way of the Home, simply earlier than boarding a airplane for his viewers with Mr. Trump.
The previous president has additionally mentioned it’s “silly” for the US to ship assist to Ukraine and railed in opposition to doing so, whilst Mr. Johnson has made it clear that it’s a prime precedence of his to deliver up a invoice to offer an infusion of American navy help to Kyiv.
The dynamic signifies that whilst they current a united entrance at Mar-a-Lago, the pair might be at odds on many points they could possibly be requested about. Such is life with Mr. Trump. And for Republican audio system, it at all times has been.
For a short while after Mr. Trump first arrived within the White Home in 2017, he deferred to Republican leaders on Capitol Hill on their legislative efforts, which included attempting to repeal Obamacare and in search of tax cuts. Former Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who had refused to marketing campaign for Mr. Trump, benefited from the truth that the brand new president had a private curiosity within the success of a shared Republican agenda.
Even so, managing the connection required each hand-holding and hand-wringing about who was going to be the final individual in Mr. Trump’s ear. In 2018, as an illustration, Mr. Trump threatened to veto an enormous spending invoice that had been authorized by Congress. Mr. Ryan needed to work to persuade him to signal it.
“It might be these hearth drills the place you needed to ship 5 or 6 folks to stroll him again,” recalled Brendan Buck, who served as a prime adviser to Mr. Ryan. “You’re at all times going to be preventing the final one that talked to him, emotional whims, the factor he learn. It’s a relentless battle you at all times need to be preventing.”
That very same yr, Mr. Trump virtually scuttled a model of the surveillance laws he tanked this week when he tweeted criticism of it — breaking together with his administration — apparently after watching a section on Fox Information. “Everybody was calling him, the nationwide safety adviser rushed over, folks had been speeding over to the White Home,” Mr. Buck recalled. Mr. Trump ultimately walked again his submit 90 minutes later.
However Mr. Trump now has much less of a stake within the Republican agenda in Congress — it’s not his. And he’s not surrounded by a nationwide safety equipment that may weigh in and assist maintain him on a observe that’s extra consistent with that of social gathering leaders in Congress.
As he settled into the White Home, Mr. Trump additionally began protecting his personal counsel extra and relying much less on congressional leaders for route. He was not fascinated with taking Mr. Ryan’s recommendation, as an illustration, about attempting to keep away from a authorities shutdown on the finish of 2018.
Mr. McCarthy spent years nurturing his relationship with Mr. Trump, going as far as to kind out his favourite flavors of Starburst to curry favor. He visited the previous president at Mar-a-Lago after the Jan. 6, 2021, mob assault on the Capitol in an try to easy over any divisions.
Mr. McCarthy had an up-and-down relationship with Mr. Trump throughout his quick tenure as speaker. He succeeded in steering a few of Mr. Trump’s endorsements through the 2022 midterm campaigns, and his largest win might need been protecting the previous president silent throughout his negotiations with the White Home over the debt ceiling — Mr. Trump waited till after the deal was signed to criticize it.
Largely, Mr. McCarthy benefited from timing: The previous president was not but the presumed Republican nominee throughout his tenure and was much less concerned within the agenda in Washington.
Mr. Johnson could have the worst of each worlds: Mr. Trump shouldn’t be the president, so he doesn’t have a shared curiosity within the Republican speaker’s legislative success, however at this stage of the presidential marketing campaign, he’s attuned sufficient to doubtlessly complicate something he tries to do. Mr. Trump continues to hold sufficient affect with Republicans on Capitol Hill that his opposition could be sufficient to sink a invoice outright, and Mr. Johnson has not had as lengthy to cement their relationship.
“Johnson has the toughest speakership of anybody since possibly the start of the Civil Warfare,” Mr. Gingrich mentioned. “His main purpose needs to be to carry the system collectively to get to an election during which Trump will increase Republican turnout.”
Folks near Mr. Trump mentioned he values Mr. Johnson’s political insights and has deferred to him at instances on endorsements. Mr. Johnson lobbied him exhausting to again Consultant Mike Bost, Republican of Illinois, over Darren Bailey, a aggressive challenger working a spirited MAGA marketing campaign. It was a tough endorsement for Mr. Trump to return round to, folks accustomed to it mentioned, however he finally did so at Mr. Johnson’s urging.
Ms. Greene, for her half, mentioned she wouldn’t again down on her criticism of Mr. Johnson or drop the risk to attempt to oust him, even when Mr. Trump provides the speaker a public increase.
“Issues like that don’t hassle me,” she mentioned of Mr. Trump internet hosting an occasion with Mr. Johnson. Of the speaker, she added: “Proper now, he doesn’t have my help.”