House Speaker Johnson meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
By Melanie Zanona and Alayna Treene, CNN
(CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson met with former President Donald Trump Monday night at Mar-a-Lago, according to a GOP source familiar with the meeting.
Johnson was at Mar-a-Lago for a fundraiser for GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, according to two Trump advisers. Johnson and Trump met briefly, the advisers said, and Johnson was not there solely for a meeting with Trump.
The meeting at the former president’s Florida resort comes nearly a week after the newly minted speaker publicly endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid for the White House, becoming the highest-ranking Republican so far to do so. It was not immediately clear what the pair discussed during the meeting.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, is a longtime Trump ally and served on the former president’s impeachment team, though the role was largely ceremonial. He voted to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021.
Last week, Johnson, who said he has endorsed Trump “wholeheartedly,” told CNBC that he was “one of the closest allies that President Trump had in Congress” and that the former president had “a phenomenal first term.”
Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, with a significant lead over his GOP rivals.
The congressman benefitted from Trump’s support in his successful bid for speaker last month, after the former president had come out against the Republican conference’s brief speaker-nominee Tom Emmer, calling the Minnesota Republican a “Globalist RINO” and saying that voting for him “would be a tragic mistake.”
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Jack Forrest contributed to this report.
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