Trump endorses Johnson for speaker re-election; President-elect loses appeal of E Jean Carroll verdict: Live
Donald Trump has endorsed the current speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, for re-election ahead of Friday’s crucial vote when Congress returns from its holiday recess.
Johnson, who narrowly averted a government shutdown before Christmas, hopes to hold onto the gavel but cannot afford more than one Republican representative voting against him in the GOP’s narrow majority.
Taking to Truth Social to call for Republican unity, the president-elect backed the incumbent by hailing Johnson as “a good, hard working, religious man.”
“He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN,” Trump said. “Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.”
Elon Musk, whose antics derailed the stop-gap spending bill before Christmas, also said he is giving his “full support” to Johnson.
Meanwhile, a federal appeals court has upheld a ruling against the president-elect after he challenged a jury’s verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming former magazine columnist E Jean Carroll.
Jurors “could reasonably infer” that Trump engaged in “a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew,” three appellate judges wrote in their decision Monday.
