Politics

(LONDON) — U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Tuesday defended his meeting with former President Donald Trump, describing engagements between foreign envoys and political opposition leaders or major opposition candidates as standard practice.

“This was entirely in line with precedent of government ministers meeting with opposition politicians in the run-up to elections,” Cameron said.

“I remember when I was prime minister meeting Mitt Romney when he was a candidate. I remember Gordon Brown meeting Barack Obama when he was a candidate, and I think Tony recently had a meeting with Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, in Munich,” Cameron said, referring to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “So these things are entirely proper.”

Cameron, a former U.K. prime minister who returned to his country’s government last year, told reporters at a State Department briefing that he and Trump had a “private meeting” where they “discussed a range of important geopolitical subjects,” but he declined to be more specific.

The two met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Monday, people familiar with the meeting confirmed. Cameron was the first U.K. official to meet with Trump since Trump left office in 2021.

The Trump campaign said in a statement that he and Cameron had dinner together and talked about “the upcoming US and UK elections, policy matters specific to Brexit, the need for NATO countries to meet their defense spending requirements, and ending the killing in Ukraine,” as well as their “mutual admiration for the late Queen Elizabeth II.”

Cameron and Trump have disagreed on issues before, as when Cameron — as prime minister — denounced Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering America, which Trump called for during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and later modified to a narrower restriction once he entered the White House.

Cameron in 2016 called the Muslim ban proposal “divisive, stupid and wrong,” and Trump soon responded that “it looks like we are not going to have a very good relationship, who knows.”

Cameron is also in the U.S. to meet with Biden administration officials including Blinken, who told reporters on Tuesday that “it is, as always a great pleasure to have Foreign Secretary Cameron here at the State Department in Washington.”

“We’ve had an ongoing conversation and ongoing consultation about the major challenges that both of our countries are facing and facing together, and today was another important chapter in those conversations,” Blinken said.

At the briefing on Tuesday, Cameron suggested his talk with Trump was on matters like conflict in the Middle East, support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and strengthening NATO that mirrored his public talking points.

“Whoever I’m talking to, I tend to make the same points — which is that we’ve got to do everything we can this year to get NATO in its strongest possible shape for its 75th anniversary,” Cameron said. “And getting everyone up to 2% [in defense spending], having the new members joining — Sweden and Finland — having the strongest possible alliance, [that is] the best thing we can do.”

Cameron then recapped his case for backing Ukraine’s war efforts, which has become increasingly divisive in America as some Republicans argue funds can be better spent on domestic priorities after more than two years of support.

“They’re fighting so bravely. They’re not going to lose for want of morale. The danger is we don’t give them the support that they need,” Cameron said. “And I make that argument to anyone who will listen to me: I argue that it is extremely good value for money for the United States and for others, perhaps for about 5 or 10% of your defense budget, almost half of Russia’s prewar military equipment has been destroyed without the loss of a single American life. This is an investment in United States security.”

Pushing ahead to his sessions with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, Cameron said he was reluctant to wade into the debate but was spurred on by his convictions.

“I always do this with great trepidation. It’s not for foreign politicians to tell legislators in another country what to do. It’s just that I’m so passionate about the importance of defending Ukraine against this aggression that I think it is absolutely the interests of U.S. security,” he said.

ABC News’ Katherine Faulders, Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Foreign adversaries and terrorist groups are sharpening their aim at the United States — targeting cyber operations, security and “mafia-like” tactics in an “increasingly concerning” way, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a speech on Tuesday.

At the American Bar Association luncheon in Washington, D.C., Wray said the agency is working to prevent a coordinated attack from terrorist groups such as ISIS-K, an affiliate of ISIS.

“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaida and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West in statements and propaganda,” Wray said. “The foreign terrorist threat and the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, like the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia Concert Hall a couple weeks ago, is now increasingly concerning. Oct. 7 and the conflict that’s followed will feed a pipeline of radicalization and mobilization for years to come.”

The warning comes as experts predict ISIS will try to carry out an attack on the United States.

“We should believe them when they say that. They’re going to try to do it,” retired Gen. Frank McKenzie told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz last month.

On Tuesday, Wray also touched on threats both seen and unseen from a bad actors from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Russia is targeting “underwater cables” that are critical to global communications, he said.

“The Russian government continues to invest heavily in their cyber operations, in part because they see cyber as an asymmetric weapon to keep up with us,” Wray said. “Russia continues to target critical infrastructure — including underwater cables and industrial control systems both in the United States and around the world. Since its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, we’ve seen Russia conducting reconnaissance on the U.S. energy sector. Adding to that concern is that the Russians — like our other adversaries — don’t care if their cyber campaigns affect civilians.”

The Chinese government “plays the long game,” he said.

“To put it simply, [China] is throwing its whole government at undermining the security and economy of the rule-of-law world,” he said.

The Chinese cyber program is larger than any other governments’ programs, Wray said, adding that it outnumbers the United States’ 50 to one. The country’s Chinese cyber threat and “mafia-like” tactics make it particularly worrisome, he added.

He also offered a full-throated defense of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lays the groundwork for the government to be able to collect the communications of non-Americans overseas who message on U.S.-based platforms without use of a warrant. Section 702 is up for reauthorization in the House this week.

“The consequences of tying our hands are not merely hypothetical,” Wray said.

He also took questions after his speech, in which he blasted House Republicans proposed $500 million cut to the FBI budget.

“China ain’t cutting their budget,” he said.

Cutting the FBI’s budget is a “form of setting us back,” he said.

“Who does cutting the budget help?” he asked. “It helps the violent criminals, the child predators, the Chinese government, cyber hackers and ransomware actors, The cartels … and terrorists. Who does it hurt? It hurts our law enforcement partners, state local law enforcement partners who depend on us every day and all whole host of ways, and ultimately hurts the American people in the neighborhoods.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s plan to build a humanitarian pier floating off the coast of Gaza that could enable delivery of food, water and medicine into the devastated region is expect to cost at least $180 million and could top $200 million, ABC News has learned.

The price tag was described by two people familiar with the initial estimate, which has not been released by U.S. Central Command.

The tally is expected to fluctuate as U.S. officials scramble to finalize key details on the project, including which humanitarian relief organizations and foreign governments are willing to help carry the shipments to shore and distribute them to ease the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.

Officials also continue to discuss how to protect service members who will be operating three miles offshore of Gaza, where Hamas is believed to still operate.

The project — which triggered the deployment of six Army and Navy ships and will involve some 1,000 U.S. military troops — is on track to become operational in early May, enabling the delivery of some 2 million meals a day.

“No U.S. boots will be on the ground,” Biden promised when announcing the project in his State of the Union speech last month. “A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

The effort has largely been seen as a political move by the president, who faced criticism for not doing more to try to rein in Israel’s destruction of Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks inside Israel and for not forcing Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to get through. White House officials have acknowledged the pier is still weeks away and not as efficient in delivering aid as via ground convoys. But they describe the deployment as part of a broader effort to open up every aid route possible to address potential famine in Gaza.

For its part, Israel defended its initial refusal to open more humanitarian channels in recent months, noting a need to screen supplies carefully to ensure they don’t help Hamas.

That dynamic changed in recent days. After Israel struck and killed seven aid workers last week — an incident Israel called a grave mistake — Biden threatened to change U.S. policy toward Gaza condition if Israel didn’t do more to allow humanitarian aid inside the enclave.

This week, Israel opened up ground checkpoints, allowing more than 1,000 trucks into Gaza — the most since the war began.

It is unlikely Israel’s new policy on allowing aid in would impact the deployment as the U.S. military ships neared the region. Aid groups say much more needs to be done to help Gaza residents.

The floating dock is expected to be nearly the size of a football field — about 97 feet wide and 270 feet long — stationed about three miles offshore. Container ships would screen their cargo in Cyprus before taking it to the floating dock and unloading it. From there, the aid would be moved aboard small Army ferries that would transport it to an 1,800-foot “trident” pier that connects to shore.

But with U.S. troops not allowed to go onshore, it’s still not clear who will bring the cargo from the pier to shore and then distribute it. Officials have said only that it’s working with “regional partners” on a solution that will ensure no American boots are on the ground in Gaza.

Deputy Defense Secretary Sabrina Singh said the military, State Department and USAID are working “around the clock” to find partners and set up the system.

“Still no boots on the ground. That is the policy that has been set by the president. We will not have boots on the ground when it comes to setting up this pier,” she said.

Those operational details though became increasingly complicated after the recent Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers.

José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, said much more needs to be done to ensure humanitarian groups can operate safely in Gaza.

“It’s been six months of targeting anything that seems — moves. This doesn’t seem a war against terror. This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel,” he told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

“This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser, Ophir Falk, pushed back against claims that the attack on the WCK vehicles was intentional.

“That’s absurd,” Falk told ABC News last week. “The last thing we would want in the world is to endanger civilian lives.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Mike Johnson’s office said Tuesday that it will delay the transmission of two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — pushing the process’ start until next week.

Johnson had said he would send the articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday, which would immediately trigger the Senate’s next moves on Thursday. A full-scale trial on the Senate floor is not likely, according to senators and leadership aides — despite what many House Republicans want.

“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” Taylor Haulsee, a spokesman for Johnson, said in a statement. “There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial.”

The House voted to impeach Mayorkas on Feb. 13 by a vote of 214-213 over what Republicans claimed was his failure to enforce border laws amid a “crisis” of high illegal immigration, allegations the secretary denied as “baseless.”

DHS has criticized the impeachment efforts.

“Without a shred of evidence or legitimate Constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely smeared a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country,” DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said. “Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe.”

Delaying the transmission of Mayorkas’ impeachment articles could potentially help Senate Republicans avoid an attendance issue if debate over the impeachment extends into Thursday evening. Senate Republicans will want to be present in full force to vote against dismissing the trial in the event that a single Democrat defects and decides to vote to advance one.

“If we want to exactly, you know, have an opportunity in the Senate to have a more fulsome discussion about this when the articles come over, there are times when that could probably happen better than having it come over tomorrow night and then trying to deal with it Thursday afternoon,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune said this afternoon.

Democrats control 51 seats in the Senate, so if they stick together, they can dismiss a trial without any GOP support if they so choose.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(PHOENIX, Ariz.) — The Arizona Supreme Court has allowed a near-total abortion ban from 1864 to go into effect, only permitting care to save the life of the mother. The decision further restricts abortion in the state where a 15-week ban was in effect.

However, the court will allow a temporary block of the near-total ban while the trial court decides how to proceed.

The court found that protections for abortion rights in the state rested “entirely” on Roe v. Wade, which allowed federal protections for the right to abortion. Since Roe has been overturned, the court found that it could begin enforcing a state statute prohibiting nearly all abortions.

Anyone found guilty of violating the ban will face two to five years in state prison.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. a Democrat, immediately came out against the ruling, saying “no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state.”

“The decision made by the Arizona Supreme Court today is unconscionable and an affront to freedom,” she said in a statement. “Make no mistake, by effectively striking down a law passed this century and replacing it with one from 160 years ago, the Court has risked the health and lives of Arizonans.”

The ruling came as part of a lawsuit over whether the 1864 ban could be reinstated. The court also sent a legal challenge against the abortion ban back to trial court.

In a dissenting opinion, one of the justices found that “the majority mistakenly returns us to the territorial-era abortion statute last operative in 1973,” Justice Ann Timmer wrote.

“I would leave it to the people and the legislature to determine Arizona’s course in the wake of Roe’s demise,” Timmer added. “With great respect for my colleagues, I dissent.”
 

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(NEW YORK) — Allen Weisselberg, once the long-serving chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, will be sentenced Wednesday to five months in jail for lying under oath during his testimony in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.

Weisselberg is expected to report to Rikers Island immediately following the sentencing hearing to begin serving his second stint behind bars. He served three months last year for evading taxes on perks he received as part of his compensation from the Trump Organization.

The former CFO pleaded guilty to lying under oath while testifying about his knowledge of the size of the Trump Tower triplex in New York City. Prosecutors said Weisselberg was trying to obtain favorable loan, insurance rates and “other economic benefits,” according to Gary Fishman, who presented the case for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“Do you admit to all of that?” Judge Laurie Peterson asked during a plea hearing last month. “Yes, your honor,” Weisselberg replied.

Perjury “tears at the very fabric of our justice system,” Fishman said.

During his trial testimony, Weisselberg struggled to explain why Trump’s 5th Avenue triplex, which is less than 11,000 square feet, was listed on statements of financial condition as 30,000 square feet.

“It was almost de minimis relative to his net worth, so I didn’t really focus on it,” Weisselberg said during trial. “I never even thought about the apartment.”

But Forbes published an article following Weisselberg’s appearance that accused him of lying under oath and suggested Weisselberg did think about the apartment because he played a key role in trying to convince the magazine the apartment was as big as Trump’s financial statements represented.

At trial, a lawyer with the New York AG’s office, Louis Solomon, confronted Weisselberg with emails from a Forbes reporter seeking clarity about the apartment’s size and a letter signed by Weisselberg certifying the excessive square footage to the Trump Organization’s accountant, Mazars USA.

“Forbes was right, the triplex was actually only 10,996 right?” Solomon asked. “Right,” Weisselberg finally conceded.

New York Judge Arthur Engoron in February ordered Trump to pay $464 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest after he found the former president and his adult sons liable for using “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate his net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has appealed the decision in the case.

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(NEW YORK) — A New York appeals court judge declined to postpone the April 15 trial in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case. The full Appellate Division First Department will consider later this month whether to relax a limited gag order as Trump has requested.

The full panel of the appellate division will now consider in the coming weeks three components that could affect former President Trump’s upcoming criminal trial in New York.

As soon as Monday, the very day trial is scheduled to begin, the appellate court could decide whether to delay the trial while it considers Trump’s appeal of the gag order and a separate ruling that keeps the case in Manhattan.

By April 22, the parties must submit written arguments about change of venue. By April 29, the parties must submit written arguments about the gag order.

Trump’s defense lawyer Emil Bove argued Tuesday morning that the gag order creates an “irreparable harm” because the former president can’t respond to attacks from expected trial witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, and it prevents him from criticizing one of the prosecutors in the case and speaking in support of a recent motion to recuse the judge based on the conduct of his daughter.

Kern responded to Trump’s request for a stay of the entire proceeding with skepticism, asking how the gag order is any different from a similar order that was upheld in Trump’s federal election interference case.

“Mr. Cohen and Ms. Clifford are attacking President Trump in public in a way that is completely different from any witness in any of these cases,” Bove argued.

Steven Wu, a lawyer for the Manhattan District Attorney, pushed back on the request for a stay, telling the court about Trump’s “uncontested history” of denigrating remarks – including calling witnesses “losers,” “horse face,” and “deranged psychopaths.”

“The criminal trial should proceed regardless,” Wu said. “This is the very time when it is most important to ensure extrajudicial statements by the defendant do not prejudice the trial.”

Wu expressed concern about Trump’s remarks putting others in the “line of fire” and potentially impacting the participation of trial witnesses.

“There has already been difficulty finding witnesses in our case to come forward and testify,” Wu said.

Trump’s attorneys have previously complained the gag order hamstrings the presumptive Republican nominee in both his political campaign and his legal defense.

The challenge is structured using an administrative petition against Judge Juan Merchan, who has barred Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court staff.

Merchan recently expanded the gag order to include his family members after Trump repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter over her work for a Democratic political consulting firm.

Trump previously challenged a limited gag order in his civil fraud case using this same method. He won a temporary stay before the full appeals court upheld the gag order in that case.

Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 presidential election.

Jury selection for the trial is currently scheduled to get underway April 15 in New York City.

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(NEW YORK) — A New York appellate court on Tuesday will hear former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a limited gag order imposed on him by the judge overseeing his hush money prosecution.

The filings are sealed so how Trump’s attorneys plan to argue isn’t known, but they have previously complained the gag order hamstrings the presumptive Republican nominee in both his political campaign and his legal defense.

The challenge is structured using an administrative petition against Judge Juan Merchan, who has barred Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court staff.

Merchan recently expanded the gag order to include his family members after Trump repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter over her work for a Democratic political consulting firm.

Trump previously challenged a limited gag order in his civil fraud case using this same method. He won a temporary stay before the full appeals court upheld the gag order in that case.

Oral argument is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.

Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 presidential election.

Jury selection for the trial is currently scheduled to get underway April 15 in New York City.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House is back in session Tuesday after a two-week-long Easter recess, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is ratcheting up her attacks on Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter to her Republican colleagues on Tuesday in an effort to convince them to join her call to remove him from the House’s top job.

The Georgia Republican’s five-page memo outlines the way she believes Johnson is failing the party including his “total surrender to” Democrats and their agenda and his shift away from Republican ideals when it comes to providing aid to Ukraine.

“I will not tolerate our elected Republican Speaker Mike Johnson serving the Democrats and the Biden administration and helping them achieve their policies that are destroying our country. He is throwing our razor-thin majority into chaos by not serving his own GOP conference that elected him,” Greene wrote in the letter.

“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership,'” Greene later wrote in the letter. “This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority.”

The letter is a strong rebuke of Johnson yet from Greene, who filed a motion to vacate Johnson just before the chamber broke for recess. She made the move after a vote to fund the government to prevent a shutdown — which Johnson needed Democratic votes to pass.

Greene then called her motion to vacate a “warning,” adding that “it’s time for our conference to choose a new speaker.”

In her letter, she warned that her Republican colleagues risk losing support from their constituents by supporting Johnson — and risk losing the majority.

“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party — we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction,” Greene wrote. “I will neither support nor take part in any of that, and neither will the people we represent.”

In the last few weeks, Greene’s criticism of Johnson has only grown.

On Monday, she called him a “Democratic Speaker” because of his propensity to lean on Democrats to pass legislation.

“Our Republican Speaker of the House is upsetting many of our members by relying on Democrats to pass major bills and working with Dems by giving them everything they want,” Greene wrote on X. “That makes him the Democrat Speaker of the House not our Republican Speaker of the House.”

Last week, Greene said Johnson had changed, saying he worked more with Democrats than Republicans.

“Mike Johnson has completely changed his character in a matter of about five months after he has become speaker of the House,” Greene said to Tucker Carlson on his program on April 3. “…He called himself a conservative, always has been, he’s a Republican member, but yet here we are …”

She added that Johnson “has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for.”

“And to the point where people are literally asking, ‘is he blackmailed? What is wrong with him?’ Because he’s completely disconnected with what we want,”

Asked if she though Johnson was, in fact, being blackmailed, Greene responded, “I have no idea. I can’t comprehend, Tucker.”

Reliance on Democrats’ votes led to the ouster of Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. He was removed from the post by Republican hard-liners who were similarly upset that he worked with Democrats to pass legislation, including an eleventh-hour deal to keep the government open last fall.

Johnson has held the position since October.

Johnson has said Greene is a friend and he is just as frustrated as she is over the GOP’s razor-thin majority and need to rely on Democrats.

“…With the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like,” Johnson said in a interview on Fox News. “And the Democrats know that when we don’t all stand together, with our razor-thin majority, then they have a better negotiation position, and that’s why we’ve got some of the things we didn’t like.”

Greene has threatened to work to push Johnson out of the speakership if he brings Ukraine aid to the floor. Johnson has pledged to act on Ukraine aid when the House returns, as the country’s war rages on with Russia.

In the Fox News interview, Johnson said he expects to move a package including aid for Ukraine with “some important innovations” when the House returns. The speaker’s office has not shared a specific timeline for any supplemental package.

“…When it comes to the supplemental, we’ve been working to build that consensus. We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to I think, have some important innovations,” Johnson said.

Republicans are looking at the “loan” idea floated by former President Donald Trump, which would make aid available to Ukraine as a loan that is waivable with no interest.

Another option would be to allow for natural gas exports to continue after the Biden administration paused approvals of new liquefied natural gas export permits earlier this year to examine climate impacts. Climate advocacy groups and local activists called the move a major win after lobbying Biden to block new liquefied natural gas export terminals, saying the U.S. should not build new fossil fuel infrastructure. Johnson called Biden’s decision on natural gas exports “outrageous” and that blocking export terminals “prevents America’s economic growth.”

The Senate passed a $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in February but Johnson has refused to take up the legislation and is not expected to do so.

It’s not clear when and if Greene will activate her resolution to oust Johnson, which would then force the House to vote on it within two legislative days.

The two were set to speak last Friday, but the details of that conversation have not yet been made public.

ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House is back in session Tuesday after a two-week-long Easter recess, and Speaker Mike Johnson is returning with his speakership under threat after fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to oust him just months after he ascended to the position.

The Georgia Republican filed a motion to vacate Johnson just before the chamber broke for recess. She made the move after a vote to fund the government to prevent a shutdown — which Johnson needed Democratic votes to pass.

Greene called her motion to vacate a “warning,” adding that “it’s time for our conference to choose a new speaker.”

In the last few weeks, Greene’s criticism of Johnson has only grown — accusing him of working closely with Democrats and shifting away from Republican ideals when it comes to providing aid to Ukraine.

On Monday, she called him a “Democratic Speaker” because of his propensity to lean on Democrats to pass legislation.

“Our Republican Speaker of the House is upsetting many of our members by relying on Democrats to pass major bills and working with Dems by giving them everything they want,” Greene wrote on X. “That makes him the Democrat Speaker of the House not our Republican Speaker of the House.”

Last week, Greene said Johnson had changed, saying he worked more with Democrats than Republicans.

“Mike Johnson has completely changed his character in a matter of about five months after he has become speaker of the House,” Greene said to Tucker Carlson on his program on April 3. “…He called himself a conservative, always has been, he’s a Republican member, but yet here we are …”

She added that Johnson “has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for.”

“And to the point where people are literally asking, ‘is he blackmailed? What is wrong with him?’ Because he’s completely disconnected with what we want,” she said.

Asked if she though Johnson was, in fact, being blackmailed, Greene responded, “I have no idea. I can’t comprehend, Tucker.”

Reliance on Democrats’ votes led to the ouster of Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. He was removed from the post by Republican hard-liners who were similarly upset that he worked with Democrats to pass legislation, including an eleventh-hour deal to keep the government open last fall.

Johnson has held the position since October.

Johnson has said Greene is a friend and he is just as frustrated as she is over the GOP’s razor-thin majority and need to rely on Democrats.

“…With the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like,” Johnson said in a interview on Fox News. “And the Democrats know that when we don’t all stand together, with our razor-thin majority, then they have a better negotiation position, and that’s why we’ve got some of the things we didn’t like.”

Greene has threatened to work to push Johnson out of the speakership if he brings Ukraine aid to the floor. Johnson has pledged to act on Ukraine aid when the House returns, as the country’s war rages on with Russia.

In the Fox News interview, Johnson said he expects to move a package including aid for Ukraine with “some important innovations” when the House returns. The speaker’s office has not shared a specific timeline for any supplemental package.

“…when it comes to the supplemental, we’ve been working to build that consensus. We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to I think, have some important innovations,” Johnson said.

Republicans are looking at the “loan” idea floated by former President Donald Trump, which would make aid available to Ukraine as a loan that is waivable with no interest.

Another option would be to allow for natural gas exports to continue after the Biden administration paused approvals of new liquefied natural gas export permits earlier this year to examine climate impacts. Climate advocacy groups and local activists called the move a major win after lobbying Biden to block new liquefied natural gas export terminals, saying the U.S. should not build new fossil fuel infrastructure. Johnson called Biden’s decision on natural gas exports “outrageous” and that blocking export terminals “prevents America’s economic growth.”

The Senate passed a $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in February but Johnson has refused to take up the legislation and is not expected to do so.

It’s not clear when and if Greene will activate her resolution to oust Johnson, which would then force the House to vote on it within two legislative days.

The two were set to speak last Friday, but the details of that conversation have not yet been made public.

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