Speaker Johnson on Biden, Trump race: ‘We like that rematch’

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was bullish Wednesday about former President Trump’s chances in his 2024 presidential rematch against President Biden, which solidified after former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her campaign and cleared the way for Trump to clinch the Republican nomination.

“We’re very happy with the results last night,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday, hours after Trump swept most states on Super Tuesday.

“The race is set now; it will be a rematch, and we like that rematch. And from my perspective, I think President Trump, what his message is resonating with the American people because this is not an untested theory. We know what President Trump delivered,” he continued during the weekly House GOP press conference, citing the economy under Trump and the tax cuts he ushered in from the White House.

Haley announced Wednesday morning that she was dropping out of the GOP primary after her campaign failed to pick up traction throughout the Republican nominating contest, which Trump dominated. The news followed Super Tuesday, when Haley lost to Trump in all states except Vermont. It was the first state she had won during the primary season, though she also clinched a victory in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.

The announcement sets the stage for a rematch between Biden and Trump, the same choice voters were presented with in 2020. Biden bested Trump that year with 306 electoral votes to 232, a decisive win that was largely due to his victories in the key swing states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

This time around, however, polls show the two men neck and neck. Decision Desk HQ’s poll average, for example, has Trump narrowly leading Biden in a match-up, 45.6 percent to 43.5 percent.

House Republican leadership has been united behind Trump for months. Johnson — who was a lead architect of the GOP conference’s strategy for challenging Biden’s win in 2020 — formally endorsed the Republican front-runner in November, telling CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he is “all in” for Trump. Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), the GOP whip, threw his support behind Trump in January, solidifying the front-runner’s support from the top five members of House GOP leadership.

Asked what his top priority is for a Trump presidency, Johnson said House Republicans will “work hand in hand” with Trump and, he predicted, Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“He got a lot of headwinds; he got a lot of resistance in that first term because he was still feeling it out. He had just arrived in Washington and was trying to figure out why some of those agencies would not follow the agenda. In fact, some of them were working against him. I think he has big plans to change some of that going forward,” Johnson said of Trump.

“We’re gonna be a big part of that; the House Republicans are gonna work hand in hand with the new president, the 47th president, which we are convinced will be President Donald Trump,” he added. “And we are gonna turn the catastrophe, the crisis, the decline that we’ve described this morning completely around. Because I believe we’ll have Republicans leading the Senate and the House as well as you will see our agenda run.”

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