Donald Trump on Friday threw a lifeline to embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying the Republican congressional leader is doing “a very good job.”
Trump defended Johnson against a move by firebrand Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom Trump labeled as a friend, to call a vote for his ouster.
“It’s not an easy situation for any speaker,” Trump said, with Johnson standing near him at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Johnson traveled to Florida on Friday to huddle with Trump in the latest sign of the hard-right presidential candidate’s informal, yet undisputed leadership of the party.
After their meeting, the two declared concern about potential fraud in the November presidential election and touched on aid to Ukraine, an issue that has sent fissures through the Republican Party.
On another issue dividing the party, Trump soft-pedaled his past support for abortion rights decades ago, saying he remolded the US Supreme Court as president, leading to the court’s June 2022 overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion.
