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Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet

Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson during a press conference at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on April 12, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 13 April 2024

Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet

Trump gives support to embattled Speaker Mike Johnson at pivotal Mar-a-Lago meet
  • Trump flashed some criticism over efforts to oust the speaker calling it “unfortunate,” saying there are “much bigger problems” right now
  • Johnson and Trump underscored their alliance by pummeling President Joe Biden with alarmist language over what Republicans claim is a “migrant invasion”

PALM BEACH, Florida: Donald Trump offered a political lifeline Friday to House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying the beleaguered GOP leader is doing a “very good job,” and tamping down the far-right forces led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to oust him from office.

Trump and Johnson appeared side-by-side at the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago club, a rite of passage for the new House leader as he hitches himself, and his GOP majority, to the indicted Republican Party leader ahead of the November election.
“I stand with the speaker,” Trump said at an evening press conference at his gilded private club.
Trump said he thinks Johnson, of Louisiana, is “doing a very good job – he’s doing about as good as you’re going to do.”
“We’re getting along very well with the speaker — and I get along very well with Marjorie,” Trump said.
But Trump flashed some criticism over efforts to oust the speaker calling it “unfortunate,” saying there are “much bigger problems” right now.




Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Speaker Mike Johnson are seen together at the US Capitol in Washington as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived to address a joint meeting of Congress on April 11, 2024. (REUTERS)

The visit was arranged as a joint announcement on new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting, but the trip itself is significant for both. Johnson needed Trump to temper hard-line threats to evict him from office. And Trump benefits from the imprimatur of official Washington dashing to Florida to embrace his comeback bid for the White House and his tangled election lies.
“It is the symbolism,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator and frequent Trump critic.
“There was a time when the Speaker of the House of Representatives was a dominant figure in American politics,” he said. “Look where we are now, where he comes hat in hand to Mar-a-Lago.”
While the moment captured the fragility of the speaker’s grip on the gavel, just six months on the job, it also put on display his evolving grasp of Trump-era politics as the Republicans in Congress align with the “Make America Great Again” movement powering the former president’s re-election bid.
Johnson and Trump underscored their alliance Friday by using similar wording to describe one part of their campaign strategy — pummeling President Joe Biden with alarmist language over what Republicans claim is a “migrant invasion.”
By linking the surge of migrants coming to the US with the upcoming election, Trump and Johnson raised the specter of noncitizens from voting — even though it’s already a federal felony for a noncitizen to cast a ballot in a federal election and exceedingly rare.
Trump called America a “dumping ground” for migrants coming to the US, and revived pressure on Biden to “close the border.”
The speaker nodded along. “It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election,” warned Johnson, who had played a key role in challenging the 2020 election that Trump lost to Biden, previewing potential 2024 arguments.
In fact, Trump had made similar claims of illegal voting in 2016 but the commission he appointed to investigate the issue disbanded without identifying a single case. A previous voter crackdown risked striking actual citizens from the voting rolls.
Ahead of the meeting, the Trump campaign sent a background paper that echoed language from the racist great replacement conspiracy theory to suggest that Biden and Democrats are engaging in what Trump’s campaign called “a willful and brazen attempt to import millions of new voters.”
Some liberal cities like San Francisco have begun to allow noncitizens to vote in a few local elections. But there’s no evidence of significant numbers of immigrants violating federal law by casting illegal ballots.
In the Trump era, the sojourns by Republican leaders to his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, have become defining moments, amplifying the lopsided partnership as the former president commandeers the party in sometimes humiliating displays of power.
Such was the case when Kevin McCarthy, then the House GOP leader, trekked to Mar-a-Lago after having been critical of the defeated president after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. A cheery photo was posted afterward, a sign of their mending relationship.
Johnson proposed the idea of coming to Mar-a-Lago weeks before Greene filed her motion to vacate him from the speaker’s office, just as another group of hard-liners had previously ousted McCarthy. The visit comes days before the former president’s criminal trial on hush money charges gets underway next week in New York City.
The speaker’s own political future depends on support — or at least not opposition — from the “Make America Great Again” Republicans who are aligned with Trump but creating much of the House dysfunction that has brought work there to a halt.
Johnson commands the narrowest majority in modern times and a single quip from the former president can derail legislation. He was once a Trump skeptic, but the two men now talk frequently.
“I think it’s an emerging relationship,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Montana, who served as interior secretary in the Trump administration.
Even still, Trump urged Republicans this week to “kill” a national security surveillance bill that Johnson had personally worked to pass, contributing to a sudden defeat that sent the House spiraling. The legislation was approved Friday in a do-over but only after Johnson provided his own vote before departing for Florida.
“I can’t imagine President Trump being very happy about that,” said Greene.
Johnson understands he needs Trump’s backing to conduct almost any business in the House — including his next big priority, providing US aid to Ukraine to fight Russia’s invasion.
In a daring move, the speaker is working both sides to help Ukraine, talking directly to the White House on the national security package that is at risk of collapse with Trump’s opposition. Greene is warning of a snap vote to oust Johnson from leadership if he allows any US assistance to flow to the overseas ally.
“We’re looking at it,” Trump said about the national security package.
On the issue of election integrity, though, Johnson is leading his House GOP majority to embrace Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election and laying the groundwork for 2024 challenges.
Trump continues to insist the 2020 election was marred by fraud, even though no evidence has emerged in the last four years to support his claims and every state in the nation certified their results as valid.
As he runs to reclaim the White House, Trump has essentially taken over the Republican National Committee, turning the campaign apparatus toward his priorities. He supported Michael Whatley to lead the RNC, which created a new “Election Integrity Division” and says it is working to hire thousands of lawyers across the country.
Tired of the infighting and wary of another dragged-out brawl like the monthlong slugfest last year to replace McCarthy, few Republicans are backing Greene’s effort to remove Johnson, for now.
But if Trump signals otherwise, that could all change.


Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border

Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border
Updated 7 sec ago

Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border

Pentagon is sending up to 1,500 active duty troops to help secure US-Mexico border
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Wednesday it has begun deploying 1,500 active duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, putting in motion plans President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.
Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said the Pentagon will provide military aircraft to support Department of Homeland Security deportation flights for more than 5,000 detained migrants and the troops will assist in the construction of barriers.
The number of troops and their mission may soon change, Salesses said in a statement. “This is just the beginning,” he said.
It remains to be seen if they will end up doing law enforcement, which would put American troops in a dramatically different role for the first time in decades.
The active duty forces will join the roughly 2,500 US National Guard and Reserve forces already there. There are currently no active duty troops working along the roughly 2,000-mile border.
Personnel started moving to the border earlier Wednesday, according to a military official briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the deployment. The troops will include 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton in California, and the remainder will be Army.
Troops have done similar duties in support of Border Patrol agents in the past, when both Trump and former President Joe Biden sent active duty troops to the border.
Troops are prohibited by law from doing law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act, but that may change. Trump has directed through executive order that the incoming secretary of defense and incoming homeland security chief report back within 90 days if they think an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked. That would allow those troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on US soil.
The last time the act was invoked was in 1992 during rioting in Los Angeles in protest of the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.
The widely expected deployment, coming in Trump’s first week in office, was an early step in his long-touted plan to expand the use of the military along the border. In one of his first orders on Monday, Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “unlawful mass migration.”
“This is something President Trump campaigned on,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary. “The American people have been waiting for such a time as this — for our Department of Defense to actually implement homeland security seriously. This is a No. 1 priority for the American people.”
On Tuesday, just as Trump fired the Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan, the service announced it was surging more cutter ships, aircraft and personnel to the “Gulf of America” — a nod to the president’s directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump said during his inaugural address on Monday that “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places in which they came.”
Military personnel have been sent to the border almost continuously since the 1990s to help address migration. drug trafficking and transnational crime.
In executive orders signed Monday, Trump suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services.”
There are about 20,000 Border Patrol agents, and while the southern border is where most are located, they’re also responsible for protecting the northern border with Canada. Usually agents are tasked with looking for drug smugglers or people trying to enter the country undetected.
More recently, however, they have had to deal with migrants actively seeking out Border Patrol in order to get refuge in America — taxing the agency’s staff.
In his first term, Trump ordered active duty troops to the border in response to a caravan of migrants slowly making its way through Mexico toward the United States in 2018. More than 7,000 active duty troops were sent to Texas, Arizona and California, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and public affairs units.
At the time, the Pentagon was adamant that active duty troops would not do law enforcement. So they spent much of their time transporting Border Patrol agents to and along the border, helping them erect additional vehicle barriers and fencing along the border, assisting them with communications and providing some security for border agent camps.
The military also provided Border Patrol agents with medical care, pre-packaged meals and temporary housing.
It’s also not yet clear if the Trump administration will order the military to use bases to house detained migrants.
Bases previously have been used for that purpose, and after the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban, they were used to host thousands of Afghan evacuees. The facilities struggled to support the influx.
In 2018, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, to prepare to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children, but the additional space ultimately wasn’t needed and Goodfellow was determined not to have the infrastructure necessary to support the surge.
In March 2021, the Biden administration greenlighted using property at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a detention facility to provide beds for up to 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children as border crossings increased from Mexico.
The facility, operated by DHS, was quickly overrun, with far too few case managers for the thousands of children that arrived, exposure to extreme weather and dust and unsanitary conditions, a 2022 inspector general report found.

South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan

South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan
Updated 29 min 25 sec ago

South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan

South Sudan orders temporary ban on social media over violence in neighboring Sudan
  • Many South Sudanese have been angered by footage from Sudan that purports to show killings by militia groups of South Sudanese in Gezira state

JUBA, South Sudan: South Sudanese authorities on Wednesday ordered telecoms to block access to social media for at least 30 days, citing concerns over the dissemination of graphic content relating to the ongoing violence against South Sudanese in neighboring Sudan.
The temporary ban, which could be extended to up to 90 days, will come into force at midnight Thursday, according to a directive from the National Communication Authority, NCA, to telecom companies stressing that the measure was necessary to protect the public.
“This directive may be lifted as soon as the situation is contained,” the NCA said. “The contents depicted violate our local laws and pose a significant threat to public safety and mental health.”
Many South Sudanese have been angered by footage from Sudan that purports to show killings by militia groups of South Sudanese in Gezira state. South Sudanese authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Jan. 17 after a night of retaliatory violence during which shops owned by Sudanese traders were looted.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, condemned “the brutal killings of South Sudanese nationals” in Sudan and urged restraint.
Civil war in Sudan has created a widening famine and the world’s largest displacement crisis. Fighting between forces loyal to rival military leaders exploded in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023 and has since spread to other areas.
The conflict has been marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the UN and rights groups.
 


Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts

Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts
Updated 23 January 2025

Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts

Trump administration freezes many health agency reports and online posts
  • Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health

The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month.
In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on — among other things — regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee.
The pause also applies to anything intended to be published in the Federal Register, where the executive branch communicates rules and regulations, and the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific publication.
The pause is in effect through Feb. 1, the memo said. Agencies subject to the HHS directive include the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration — entities that fight epidemics, protect the nation’s food supply and search for cures to diseases.
HHS officials did not respond to requests for comment on the pause, which was first reported by The Washington Post. Four federal health officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue confirmed the communication pause to the AP.
A former HHS official said Wednesday that it’s not unusual for incoming administrations to pause agency communications for review. But typically, officials working on the president’s transition team have the process for issuing documents running smoothly by inauguration day.
“The executive branch is a hierarchy,” said Steven Grossman, who now consults for food and drug companies, in an email. “Whether stated publicly or not, every new administration wants important commitments and positions to wait until new teams are in place and some semblance of hierarchy restored.”
A pause is reasonable as a changing executive branch takes steps to become coordinated, said Dr. Ali Khan, a former CDC outbreak investigator who is now dean of the University of Nebraska’s public health college.
“The only concern would be is if this is a prelude to going back to a prior approach of silencing the agencies around a political narrative,” he added.
During his first term, President Donald Trump’s political appointees tried to gain control over the CDC’s MMWR journal, which had published information about the COVID-19 pandemic that conflicted with messaging from the White House.
Fink wrote in her memo that some exceptions would be made for communications affecting “critical health, safety, environmental, financial or nation security functions,” but that those would be subject to review. The FDA on Tuesday and Wednesday posted notices about warning letters sent to companies and a drug safety notice.
A consumer advocacy group said the communications pause could still threaten public safety.
Americans depend on timely information from the CDC, the FDA and other agencies to avoid foodborne illnesses and stay aware of other health issues, said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
“When it comes to stopping outbreaks, every second counts,” Lurie said in a statement. “Confusion around the vaguely worded gag order is likely to lead to unnecessary delay in publishing urgent public alerts during active outbreaks.”
He was echoed by Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a University of Southern California public health expert.
“Local health officials and doctors depend on the CDC to get disease updates, timely prevention, testing and treatment guidelines and information about outbreaks,” Klausner wrote in an email. “Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health. Imagine if the government turned off fire sirens or other warning systems.”


Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president

Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president
Updated 23 January 2025

Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president

Swiss prosecutors examine complaints against Israel president
  • The Swiss Keystone-ATS news agency reported that one of the complaints came from an NGO called Legal Action Against Genocide

GENEVA: Swiss prosecutors said Wednesday they were examining several complaints against visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as reports suggested NGOs were accusing him of “incitement to genocide” in Gaza.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) confirmed it had received “several criminal complaints” against Herzog, who was at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week.
“The criminal complaints are now being examined in accordance with the usual procedure,” the OAG said in an email sent to AFP, adding that the office was in contact with Switzerland’s foreign ministry “to examine the question of the immunity of the person concerned.”
It provided no details on the specific complaints filed.
The Swiss Keystone-ATS news agency reported that one of the complaints came from an NGO called Legal Action Against Genocide.
The NGO was calling for Herzog to be prosecuted “for incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity,” the news agency said.
The complaint, it said, deemed he had played “an active role in the ideological justification of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, by erasing all distinction between the civilian population and combatants.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and genocide, accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields.
Herzog spoke at Davos on Tuesday and held meetings on Wednesday morning but it was unclear if he was still in Switzerland.
Complaints were also filed against him when he attended the Davos meeting a year ago but the OAG refrained from opening an investigation that time, Keystone-ATS reported.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
It sparked a war that has levelled much of Gaza and, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed more than 47,100, a majority of them civilians, figures the United Nations has said are reliable.


Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown

Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown
Updated 22 January 2025

Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown

Trump halts refugee arrivals in crackdown
  • The memo asked the UN International Organization for Migration not to move refugees to transit centers
  • Refugees already resettled in the United States will continue to receive services as planned, it said

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has halted arrivals of refugees already cleared to enter the United States, according to a memo seen Wednesday, as he quickly pursues a sweeping crackdown on migration.
Following an executive order signed Monday hours after Trump took office, “all previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being canceled,” said a State Department email to groups working with new arrivals.
The memo asked the UN International Organization for Migration not to move refugees to transit centers and said that all processing on cases has also been suspended.
Refugees already resettled in the United States will continue to receive services as planned, it said.
Trump in each of his presidential campaigns has run on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration.
But the refugee move also targets a legal pathway for people fleeing wars, persecution or disasters.
In his executive order, he said he was suspending refugee admissions as of January 27 and ordered a report on how to change the program, in part by giving “greater involvement” to states and local jurisdictions.
It also revoked his predecessor Joe Biden’s decision to consider the impact of climate change in refugee admissions.
New Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said Wednesday that the State Department will “no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. “
“Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritize securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants,” Rubio said in a statement.
Biden had embraced the refugee program as a way to support people in need through legal means.
In the 2024 fiscal year, more than 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States, the most in three decades.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar have been among the top sources of refugees in recent years.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voiced alarm at Trump’s moves and said that acceptance of refugees was “a core American value.”
“The US Refugee Admissions Program has a long history of bipartisan support and is a life-saving tool for the most vulnerable refugees, all while making Americans safer by promoting stability around the world,” she said.
The State Department memo said that Afghans who worked with the United States until the collapse of the Western-backed government in 2021 could still arrive through their separate resettlement program.
But Shaheen voiced concern that Afghans were also being left in limbo with flights canceled.