President-elect Donald Trump is expected to make a visit with House Republican leadership on Capitol Hill before meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters on Tuesday.
Although the details have not been finalized, Johnson said they have “preliminary plans” to meet with the president-elect before he meets with Biden to discuss the transition. It’s not yet clear what time that meeting could be, but the speaker said it would likely be in the morning before Trump heads to the White House.
“I think he said it first before I did but that he wanted to come and visit with House Republicans,” Johnson said. “So we’re working out the details of him gathering with us potentially tomorrow morning before he goes to the White House, and that would be a great meeting and a moment for all of us.”
The meeting on Capitol Hill will happen just days before Johnson plans to go to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to meet with Trump and discuss “details on the plan ahead” for a possible GOP trifecta next year. Although the race for House control has not yet been called, Republicans look poised to maintain their slim majority, securing GOP control in both chambers of Congress as well as the White House.
“As you can imagine right now, he has a lot going on,” Johnson said. “He has to fill out a Cabinet, he has to appoint his top staff, and he’s beginning to do that.”
Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill is the first time the president-elect will meet with congressional Republicans since June when he huddled with the GOP conference to discuss election strategy. That meeting occurred off the Capitol grounds at the Capitol Hill Club, where Republicans often meet to discuss political matters.
However, if Trump meets with Johnson on Wednesday, it will likely take place inside the Capitol building — marking the first time he has returned to the location since his presidency.
His meeting comes as Democrats hold Trump responsible for the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who led Trump’s second impeachment.
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“Now, the fact of Jan. 6, that was an assault on our Congress, assault on the Capitol, this beacon of democracy to the world, an assault on the Constitution of the United States. It was insurrection, instigated by the president of the United States,” Pelosi told the New York Times in a recent interview.
House Democratic leaders have not yet responded to Trump’s planned visit or whether they will request a meeting with the president-elect.