House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) denied that former President Donald Trump is directing House Republicans on their actions regarding the proposed Senate border security deal.
Trump has bashed reported details of the proposed deal negotiated by the Senate and advised Republicans to not support the bill. Ahead of the details being released publicly, Johnson denied that Trump was “calling the shots” for the House GOP, while speaking on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“Of course not. He’s not calling the shots. I am calling the shots for the House. That’s our responsibility. And I have been saying this far longer than President Trump has. I have been saying what the requirements are to fix the problem,” Johnson said.
Johnson pushed for the House GOP’s H.R. 2 proposal while also claiming that House Republicans have been shut out of the negotiating process for the Senate border security bill. He also said that he has not received a briefing on what has been negotiated by the Senate.
“I’ve had individual senators call and give me tips and offered things that are going on in the room, but we’ve not been a part of that negotiation. And I have been absolutely clear from Day One — since literally the next morning after being handed the gavel in late October — what the functional equivalents of H.R. 2, what those are and why that was necessary to solve the problem,” Johnson said.
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Details on the Senate’s proposed border security bill are expected to be released on Sunday, after months of negotiations, but they are not expected to be warmly received by the Republican-led House of Representatives.
President Joe Biden has stated that if the Senate bill is passed, he will close the border, but Johnson and other Republicans have insisted that the president already has the authority to do so.
