House Speaker Mike Johnson, who recently made clear his endorsement of Donald Trump in 2024, met with the former president Monday night, two sources familiar with the meeting said.
Johnson, R-La., and Trump met at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida at a fundraiser for Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla. The meeting comes days after Johnson told CNBC in an interview that he is "all in for President Trump," who is leading in the polls in the GOP presidential primary campaign.
"I have endorsed him wholeheartedly," he said last week.
By endorsing Trump, Johnson broke with his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who declined to back a candidate in the GOP primaries when he was speaker earlier this year. Congressional party leaders often refrain from endorsing candidates until presumptive nominees are established.
Trump appeared to boost Johnson’s bid for speaker on Truth Social last month, writing, "My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!"
In 2020, Johnson led an amicus brief that was signed by 100 Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate election results in four battleground states won by President Joe Biden.
The New York Times reported last week that in 2015, years before he supported Trump, Johnson wrote on Facebook that he believed Trump “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House” and suggested that his hotheadedness “is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”
