WASHINGTON — President Biden pivoted on Monday, saying that he would be “happy to meet” with House Speaker Mike Johnson — after White House staff rejected the Louisiana Republican’s recent requests to discuss pending Ukraine aid and US-Mexico border policy changes.
“Sure, I’d be happy to meet with him if he has anything to say,” the 81-year-old president told reporters on the White House lawn as he returned from a long weekend at his Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home.
Biden’s willingness to meet comes after his aides for weeks rebuffed Johnson’s requests.
A Hill source told The Post that the speaker’s staff had been trying for more than five weeks to set up a meeting, but that the White House denied the requests.
Johnson told reporters last week that he needs face time with Biden to negotiate a path forward that could break through sharp policy disagreements.
“A month I’ve been asking to sit down with the president to talk about the border and talk about national security, and that meeting has not been granted,” Johnson said Wednesday.
“And I’m going to continue to insist on that, because they’re very serious issues that need to be addressed. And if the speaker of the House can’t meet with the president of the United States, that’s a problem.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre rebuffed Johnson’s request, saying Wednesday: “What is there to negotiate? Really, truly, what is the one-on-one negotiation about, when he’s been presented with exactly what he asked for? So, he’s negotiating with himself. He’s killing bills on his own.”
Biden and Johnson both attended the Feb. 1 National Prayer Breakfast, but they have not had a formal meeting since Jan. 17 at the White House.
The Senate on Feb. 13 passed a $95 billion foreign aid package — including $60 billion in war aid for Ukraine — but House Republicans have insisted that more aid for Kyiv be paired with new action to halt the flow of asylum seekers across the US-Mexico border, which Johnson has attributed to Biden’s policies, including the release of up to 85% of those detained to await asylum rulings inside the US.
A bipartisan border policy negotiation in the Senate didn’t include House Republicans and ultimately fell apart over conservative criticism. Opponents argued the plan granted Biden power to take a more forceful approach — power, they said, that the president already had but refused to exercise.
Johnson also has expressed unease about Ukraine aid — accusing White House staff of providing woefully insufficient answers about US goals in helping Kyiv fed off the two-year-old Russian invasion.
The speaker has also urged closer oversight of aid flowing to the notoriously corrupt region after Congress previously appropriated $113 billion for Kyiv’s defense.