Speaker Johnson Gets Lifeline From Trump Amid Threat to His Job

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Speaker Mike Johnson had a difficult week. He is facing a revolt from one of the most conservative members of his caucus that could cost him his job. And the prospect of providing additional aid to Ukraine continues to meet opposition.

Then, on Friday, he flew to Florida, where the man who has contributed to many of his challenges threw him a lifeline.

“I stand with the speaker,” former President Donald Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, as Johnson stood behind him and nodded along.

It was a message the speaker needed at a tenuous moment in his leadership, when he faces the threat from one of Trump’s most loyal allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., of a motion to oust him.

Even in light of Trump’s remarks, there appears to be little political downside for Greene to follow through on her threat to oust Johnson if he brings an aid package for Ukraine to the floor.

In a social media post after Friday’s news conference, Greene signaled that Trump’s high-profile show of support had not changed her view of the speaker. After voicing her continued loyalty to the former president, she said, “But I do not support Speaker Johnson.”

Johnson, for his part, offered a high-profile backing of Trump’s allegations of voter fraud, giving them public support and pushing a proposal to address two issues central to Trump’s 2024 campaign: border security and repeatedly debunked claims of election fraud.

Since his first presidential campaign, Trump has claimed without evidence that Democrats are allowing or encouraging migrants to cross the border illegally in order to register them to vote.

It is already illegal for people who are not citizens to vote in federal elections. Fact-checkers have found that it happens rarely, often by mistake, and nowhere near the level that Trump has suggested, such as when he claimed that millions of immigrants who are not citizens voted in 2016.

But Johnson repeated Trump’s claims, vowing to push a bill that would require that anyone registering to vote in a federal election prove their citizenship, and require states to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. Johnson was not clear on how such a bill might enforce these requirements.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .