Speaker Johnson and Trump to Meet

Key Takeaways
  • House Speaker Mike Johnson seeks unity with former President Trump at a Mar-a-Lago meeting.
  • Johnson met with a defeat this week when members of his own party quashed a motion to extend a longstanding authorization for surveillance of foreign sources.
  • House Republicans have delayed sending their impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate until next week.

On Friday, House Speaker Johnson will head to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with former President Trump, seeking to enhance cooperation between them as Trump prepares to be the Party’s nominee in November. Under the Republican House rules it only takes one House Member to move to vacate the Speaker’s position. Johnson hopes that with Trump’s support, he can forestall a motion to vacate.

The conflict was apparent this week when Trump spoke up against the five-year renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the US to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreign sources. Former President Trump believes it was used against him in the Russian interference case.  With Trump’s opposition, 19 Republicans voted against the procedural move to bring the extension to the floor on Thursday.  Overnight, the bill was reworked so it would only extend the authorization for two years, and while on Thursday the vote was 193Y to 228N, on Friday the vote to take up the bill was 213Y to 208N.

The Speaker is hoping that by improving his communications with the de facto leader of the Party, he can achieve more success with his one-vote majority in the House, and not be defeated as he was yesterday on the FISA procedural motion.

Senate impeachment

The House was expected to send the Senate their impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this week.  However, Senate Republicans pleaded with Speaker Johnson to delay the action so that they could better prepare their strategy.  The House agreed and the Senate action on Mayorkas was pushed to next week.

Senate Leader Schumer has not revealed his strategy, but he has made clear there is little support for the action among Senate Democrats, and he plans to dispose of the impeachment resolution in short order.  Notably, this past week Republicans sent a letter to Schumer asking for a full trial, and the signatures of six Republican Senators were missing.

Disclosures (show)

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