Biden swipes at Trump at White House correspondents' dinner

Table Of Content

• news Alerts
• Trump Reveals Terms for Accepting Speaker of the House Role
• Who is Mike Johnson? New House speaker is a strong Trump ally and a quiet force among Republicans
• Just the idea of House Speaker Trump could be a dream or nightmare for each party
• Could Donald Trump stand for US speaker? An expert explains

Ohio's Jim Jordan—seen as a potential replacement for McCarthy—told Fox News' Sean Hannity that Trump would be "great" as House Speaker, but did not suggest he would vote for him. Trump’s involvement in the House GOP’s upheaval comes just as Republican leaders have been trying to tamp down the drama and soothe tempers. Republicans are also trying to avoid the spectacle of a protracted speaker’s contest by finding a consensus candidate in closed-door meetings next week. Party rules would need to be modified to allow Trump to serve, which would again require a simple house majority. Doing so would be highly unusual, but not impossible, in the middle of a congressional session. Trump’s name was immediately floated by supporters after the successful vote to depose McCarthy, and a Trump adviser Tuesday night told NBC News that Republican members of the House had already been asking Trump to serve as an interim speaker.

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In response, Biden's team has worked to make the president's events smaller and has withheld their exact locations longer than usual in hopes of cutting back on potential interruptions. U.S. Secret Service chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that “attendees can expect layered security and screening at the dinner,” adding that there would be “intermittent” road closures near the venue. Biden also highlighted the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for more than a year on espionage charges that he and his employer deny.

Trump Reveals Terms for Accepting Speaker of the House Role

However, the rules can be changed by the GOP with the required creation of an ad hoc committee, appointed by the speaker and chaired by a senior Republican member of the Committee on Rules of the House. When asked if he would actually take the job, Trump said he's been asked by "a lot of people." While some Trump acolytes within the House GOP have openly expressed their willingness for Trump to take the gavel, the former president seems ambivalent based on his presidential prospects and being inundated with myriad legal cases. Both parties will need to state when they are ready to enter into the process of electing a new Speaker. "This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives," Nehls said in a statement. "President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again."

Who is Mike Johnson? New House speaker is a strong Trump ally and a quiet force among Republicans

The party settled on Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had not sought the gavel but agreed to take it. Like Johnson an era later, Hastert was a relatively quiet member of the leadership who enjoyed goodwill generally in the rank and file. Hastert was speaker through the last two Clinton years and first six of the George W. Bush presidency. But he voluntarily resigned after the GOP lost badly in the 2006 midterms, a defeat Bush called "a thumpin' " at the time.

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Even if that threshold were to change to three members, or five, the blockade of opposition to Jordan this week has shown plenty of political will among centrist Republicans, enough to force a vote if Speaker Trump were to seriously step out of line. The American public wouldn’t have to wait around for the next presidential election, or for yet another doomed-to-fail impeachment. "A lot of people have been calling me about speaker," he said outside the New York City courthouse, where he faces a civil trial involving his business holdings. "All I can say is we will do whatever is best for the country and other Republican Party and people." Gingrich managed to restore many of the powers of the speakership but clashed repeatedly with Clinton and even with Republican leaders in the Senate.

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Five people died as a result of the violence, and the Capitol complex suffered millions of dollars in damage. Ryan, then just 45, was the youngest speaker in nearly 150 years but had already been party's vice presidential nominee on the 2012 ticket. Once he had Boehner's job, however, he experienced much the same internal strife. Ryan also had a strained relationship with then-President Donald Trump, with whom he had a falling out during the fall 2016 campaign. In April 2018, Ryan said he would not serve another term and left as the party was losing its majority that fall. Republican infighting over the House speaker has ended, but it hasn't stopped the debate over the role that former President Donald Trump played in picking that new leader.

Other charges, such as conspiracy to obstruct justice, could bring a sentence of up to 20 years. That provision says, "A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed." "There will never, ever be a speaker who is not a member of the House," Punchbowl News’ John Bresnahan posted on X.

It was his supporters — led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz — who orchestrated McCarthy’s ouster and who have driven much of the House GOP’s agenda. Even though speakers direct their party’s strategy and tactics in the chamber, they are also officers of the House as a whole. In addition, the House Republican Conference rules could be trumped, to coin a phrase, by the fact that the speaker is not only a leader of the majority party, but also an officer of the House of Representatives.

However, the Trump administration’s program “Operation Warp Speed” assisted in the private sector development of two approved vaccines. Nonetheless, by the time Trump left office, more than 400,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. In 2019, a federal whistleblower filed a complaint that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who had served on the board of Bursima Holdings, a natural gas company in Ukraine. Later that year, the House of Representatives impeached President Trump based upon allegations of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

But his efforts alienated some in his own ranks who in 2015 formed an insurgent group known as the House Freedom Caucus. Increasingly exasperated with his untenable predicament, Boehner simply resigned in October of that year. Those eight years actually made Hastert the longest-serving Republican speaker in history.

Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters he looks forward to sitting down with Johnson and finding a bipartisan way to avoid a shutdown before government funding expires in mid-November. Free from the political baggage that can come with a higher profile, the affable Johnson, 51, promises to restore faith in Congress as he assumes the speakership under remarkable circumstances. He’s taking charge after three weeks of infighting, other failed candidacies and no action on legislation. “A friend to all and an enemy to none,” Republican conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik said when nominating Johnson ahead of the speaker vote Wednesday.

The constitution only states that the “House of Representatives shall chuse [sic] their Speaker and other Officers”. Jordan on Wednesday became the first House Republican to officially announce that he is running for speaker. It’s a question that has emerged in the chaotic afterglow of a collection of House conservatives succeeding in ousting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. So far, the former president has done little to downplay the political intrigue. Trump is facing four separate indictments, two in federal cases and two in state cases. In just one of those cases, involving documents he’s charged with keeping after his presidency, one Espionage Act charge alone carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The speakership was vacated after eight Republicans and all House Democrats in attendance supported a motion to vacate on Tuesday, stripping Congressman Kevin McCarthy of House leadership. The chamber is scheduled to meet again Wednesday to begin voting on the next speaker, but with a fractured GOP majority, it remains unlikely that a decision will be made soon. Asked Wednesday about taking up the House gavel, Trump told reporters outside the Manhattan courtroom where he's facing a civil fraud trial, "All I can say is we'll do whatever's best for the country and for the Republican Party. Trump lost reelection to Democratic candidate Joe Biden, but publicly claimed widespread voter fraud had affected the outcome. Trump spoke to the large crowd on the Ellipse near the White House and encouraged attendees to protest the counting of the Electoral College votes in Congress. The rally turned violent when the president’s supporters overwhelmed law enforcement, breaching the United States Capitol and disrupting the vote count.

He also said he would do whatever he can to help the Republicans come together after eight party members this week forced the removal of McCarthy. When asked about the 2020 election at a news conference after he was nominated for speaker Tuesday night, Johnson declined to answer. The former president's potential visit to Washington, D.C., would also mark the first time Trump has visited the Capitol since leaving office in January 2021. It would also come as Trump faces four federal felony charges in the Justice Department's investigation of the January 6 Capitol attack, which was waged by Trump's supporters.

A handful of Republican lawmakers have already indicated their support for Trump taking the position. The well-respected No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor of Virginia, had lost his primary in 2014. The No. 3, McCarthy, soon ran aground over remarks in a TV interview and lacked the votes to be speaker.

But any luster left after 2006 was lost when he went to prison for bank fraud charges stemming from hush money payments he had made to a former student he admitted to having sexually abused decades earlier. She could activate a vote at any time so Johnson should know he is skating on thin ice. "I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States," Jordan said. "But if he wants to be speaker, great. That's where we need him, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but if he wants to be speaker, that's fine too." Three GOP House members—Texas' Troy Nehls, Florida's Greg Steube and Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene—have indicated that they will support the former president in voting to select a new House Speaker.