Speaker Johnson not dismissing border deal to help Trump: ‘That’s absurd’

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) denied Tuesday that his resistance to a bipartisan deal being crafted in the Senate to pair border and migration policy changes with Ukraine aid is an attempt to help former President Trump in his presidential campaign.

“No,” Johnson said at a press conference when asked if he was trying to help Trump. “That’s absurd. We have a responsibility here to do our duty.”

“Our duty is to do right by the American people, to protect the people. The first and most important job of the federal government is protecting citizens. We’re not doing that under President Biden,” Johnson said.  

House Republicans have long insisted that any additional Ukraine aid should only be approved if migration issues on the U.S.-Mexico border are addressed first, prompting a bipartisan group of senators to work for months on legislation pairing the two issues.

Trump, however, has urged Republicans — and Johnson specifically — to “only make a deal that is PERFECT ON THE BORDER” and reject any Senate deal “unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people.”

Text of the deal being crafted in the Senate has not been released, but Johnson has said that if what he has heard about the Senate deal is true, the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the House.

“Our majority is small. We only have it in one chamber, but we’re trying to use every ounce of leverage that we have to make sure that this issue is addressed,” Johnson said Tuesday.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is seen during a press conference after a closed-door House Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday, January 30, 2024. (Greg Nash)

Democrats have accused Trump and Republicans of rejecting any border deal so that they can run on the issue in 2024 and avoid giving Biden a win.

“House Republicans, they have a choice to make. They have to choose whether they want to solve a problem, actually solve a problem like the Senate is trying to do in a bipartisan way, or get in the way and score political points,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week.

One major rumored provision in the deal that is eliciting GOP pushback concerns the executive branch power to halt migration if illegal crossings exceed 5,000 per day. Republicans opposed to the deal argue that the threshold should be far lower.

“Why would you tolerate 5,000 a day before you sought to suddenly enforce the law? That would be surrender,” Johnson said. “The goal should be zero illegal crossings a day, not 5,000. And all the president’s authority should be utilized at zero.”

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Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), one of the chief Senate negotiators on the border bill, has pushed back against “internet rumors” and specifically reports of the 5,000 crossings number.

Johnson, who has called on Biden to use executive authority to reinstate Trump-era policies on the border, also said he has talked to Trump about the bill.

“I have talked to former President Trump about this issue at length, and he understands … that we have a responsibility to do here,” Johnson said. “President Trump is the one that’s talked about border security before anyone else did. He ran on, as you remember, building the wall. Why? Because he saw this catastrophe. He knew that if we did not get control of it, we would be in a situation, and that’s why President Trump took executive actions. He used his executive authority to get that system under control.”