Mike Johnson attends Super Bowl with Trump as budget bill puts him in an uncomfortably familiar position Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was by the side of Donald Trump on Sunday as the two, along with Senate Republican whip John Barrasso, attended the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
But his appearance alongside the president is given special meaning this weekend as Johnson is now facing one of his toughest political battles as Speaker — a bid to craft budget legislation that will satisfy all sides of the Republican Party, from the president to the disparate groups that make up the House and Senate Republican caucuses.
Neither option looks particularly easy, with Democrats stating that the GOP should not assume that the opposition party would bail out the House Republican caucus and supply Democratic votes to make up for Republican budget hawks who refuse to support Johnson’s plan.
The Speaker could push for a continuing resolution to fund the government past the March deadline, then push forward with a plan to rely solely on Republican votes for the party’s budget plan — or simply seek to push something through before that March 14 funding drop-off.
“Leader Jeffries and others seem to be trying to set up some sort of government shutdown,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol, adding:“We were negotiating in good faith and trying to get the top-line number, but so far as I know, they’ve been sort of unresponsive the last two days or so.”.
