Speaker Mike Johnson Joins Trump for Election Integrity Talks

TFD – Delve into the meeting between Speaker Mike Johnson and Donald Trump to discuss election integrity and the GOP’s stance on conspiracy theories.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will speak beside Donald Trump on Friday, amplifying the most harmful lie spread by the previous president: that massive fraud has corrupted America’s democratic elections.

The most powerful elected Republican in the nation, who is attempting to keep his job in the face of threats from members of his own party in Congress who support Trump, is scheduled to visit Trump at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, to meet with the real power in the GOP. The visit takes place at a time when the allies of the former president are undermining his power and potentially posing a threat to his resignation.

It also takes place three days before Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, becomes the first former president to go on trial, with the beginning of jury selection in a New York case related to a hush money payment to an adult film star. The legal drama surrounding Trump’s impending trial in Florida for his hoarding of sensitive information will also take a new turn on Friday. Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, whose no-rush management of pre-trial litigation means it’s increasingly unlikely the case will be adjudicated before November’s election, will hear an attempt by two of Trump’s co-accused to have the case dismissed.

The theme of Johnson and Trump’s joint public speech on Friday is “election integrity,” which is a catch-all word for the deluge of false information and conspiracy theories around the 2020 election that Trump is now utilizing as the cornerstone of his drive for reelection in 2024. Republicans who want the backing of the former president have always had to pay a price: they have to be prepared to support his fictitious notion of a stolen election. Johnson may have indicated he’s prepared to make a comparable down payment if the former president holds off on Johnson’s removal as speaker by visiting Trump’s home.

According to CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Fredreka Schouten on Thursday, the two GOP leaders are anticipated to highlight what they claim are state plans and lawsuits that would grant non-citizens the right to vote. Non-citizens are permitted to vote in certain local or jurisdictional elections, such as those for school board seats. However, it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections; those who do so run the danger of penalties, jail time, and deportation. Given these sanctions, a lot of voting rights organizations believe there isn’t a general issue that needs to be addressed. The state of Georgia, with nearly 8 million registered voters conducted a statewide audit and found that 1,634 potential non-citizens had tried to register to vote between 1997 and early 2022 but none were successful.

But given Trump’s incessant attempts to blur distinctions, and to falsely claim undocumented migrants vote in US elections in large numbers as part of a Democratic plot, the distinction is likely to be lost on many people who are not familiar with the subtleties of the issue.

The GOP’s predominance of stolen electoral lies

Johnson’s readiness to provide the legitimacy of his position to Trump’s “election integrity” campaign demonstrates how nearly every major GOP figure has been engulfed by Trump’s conspiracy theory of a stolen election.

As the presumed Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump took over the Republican National Committee and appointed supporters, the organization has grown even more vocal in its fundraising and advertising on the false assumption that the 2020 election was rigged.

According to CNN’s KFile, the Republican National Committee (RNC) called voters on behalf of Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, the new co-chair, claiming that Democrats had engaged in “fraud” in the 2020 election. It stated that “your vote could be canceled out by someone who isn’t even an American citizen” if “Democrats have their way.” Many Republican-led state legislatures were also prompted by Trump’s electoral deceptions to enact election security-related legislation that might make voting more difficult and facilitate election meddling by political figures. Trump’s multiple failed lawsuits and even his own Attorney General William Barr offered testimony to the lack of widespread voter fraud in 2020. But Trump remains locked in his false reality.

CNN was informed by a Trump adviser that Trump and Johnson are anticipated to revisit the 2020 race during Friday’s press conference. The speaker of the House has no trouble feeding Trump’s need for evidence to support his theory that he won an election through fraud. After the election of 2020, Johnson—a Republican backbencher at the time—sent an email to every member of the House asking for signatures on an amicus brief in a Texas lawsuit that sought to nullify Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin’s electoral college votes.

In 2016, Trump began spreading the myth that foreign nationals rigged US elections. He claimed, without providing any proof, that millions of undocumented immigrants supported his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, costing him the popular vote victory even though he won the Electoral College.

In the 2024 election, the new focus on the idea that non-citizens are corrupting US voter rolls provides neat synergy with one of Trump’s chief election themes: that the country is facing an invasion from undocumented migrants who are bringing crime and disease to the country due to President Joe Biden’s perceived failures during a crisis at the southern border. The ex-president also frequently cites a tenet of the racist “great replacement theory” that Democrats are importing foreigners en masse to register them to vote in the 2024 election. “IT’S SO THEY CAN VOTE, VOTE, VOTE,” Trump said on his Truth Social network in December. No facts back up these claims of a Republican presumptive nominee who has warned immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.

This week, Johnson elaborated on the subject in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, including a purported Democratic scheme to alter the election map. The final goal, according to Johnson, “sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I think it’s actually true that some of these illegals are here to vote for their cause and to change the outcome of the census in 2030.” “It sounds like a crazy criminal design, you know. And in my view it is.”

The consequences of Trump’s election deceptions

On election night 2020, the former president’s story of the stolen election gained momentum. At first, it seemed like a face-saving attempt to stroke his ego and cover up his humiliation at losing to Biden. But in a matter of days, it had developed into a serious attempt to overturn the outcome that had given Trump a one-term presidency. Trump said, “If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” two days after the election. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

From modest beginnings, the conspiracy theory caused great harm, including inspiring Trump’s followers to launch a mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to block the official announcement of Biden’s election triumph. Two of the four felony indictments against the former president stemmed from his attempt to rig the election against Biden. Trump’s campaign of falsehoods convinced millions of his supporters that he was ousted from office unfairly, damaging trust in the integrity of US democracy. And the falsehood has now become the backbone of another Trump presidential campaign as he dismisses efforts to enforce legal accountability for his alleged crimes as an attempt to Democrats to interfere in the 2024 election.

Johnson is facing serious political difficulties.

Trump hardly ever attends an event without bringing up his baseless accusations of electoral fraud. Thus, granting validity to his conspiracy notion is one way Republicans might regain his trust.

Johnson badly needs Trump’s help. His speakership — propped up by the slimmest of majorities — is hanging by a thread. This week, he was humbled when 19 Republican lawmakers — including some key Trump allies like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz – blocked a procedural vote on reauthorizing surveillance authorities on foreigners overseas that US intelligence agencies described as vital in the battle against terrorism. They were acting on the orders of Trump, who claims he was spied on by US espionage agencies in his 2016 campaign. The bill now looks set to pass after leadership cut the length of the authorization from five to two years on the assumption that Trump will win November’s election and can change it himself. “We just bought President Trump an at bat,” Gaetz told CNN.

Another Trump adherent, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, poses an even more formidable threat to Johnson. She has vowed to remove the speaker if he permits a vote on Biden’s much-delayed $60 billion arms and ammunition package for Ukraine. Greene frequently attends Trump rallies and communicates with him on a regular basis. Johnson may have been hopeful that Trump’s influence may assist after a contentious meeting with Greene this week that didn’t do much to allay her displeasure.

Greene, however, issued a warning on Thursday that she would carry out her campaign against the speaker regardless of whether the former president endorsed Johnson at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. She claimed that any vote she called to replace Johnson was an internal House matter. “Completely two different problems. “I hope they have a fantastic meeting tomorrow,” Greene said to Manu Raju of CNN. Pressed on whether she would back down if Trump asked her to, the Georgia Republican dodged. “As one of President Trump’s strongest allies in Congress, I back him. He knows it, I love the president, he loves me, we’re fighting hard for him to win and that’s all that matters.”

It’s not immediately clear why Trump would be happy about yet another power struggle within the GOP majority in the House, as this could divert attention away from his presidential campaign and hurt his and House Republicans‘ chances of winning in November.

Therefore, he might be motivated to keep Johnson in place for the time being, even if the former president is known for being erratic in his political allegiance and is capable of changing course at any time to suit his own goals. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker who was ousted by far-right Republican lawmakers last year, is one individual who paid a price for learning that. The Californian did more than anyone to rehabilitate Trump’s political image, traveling to Florida to meet the ex-president while he was in disgrace weeks after the US Capitol riot. But when McCarthy — who did everything he could to please Trump — fell into mortal political peril last year, Trump made little effort to save him.

The ominous echo of a previous speaker’s visit to Trump’s ornate Mar-a-Lago estate will be resonating over Johnson’s pilgrimage on Friday.