Mike Johnson is out of the loop on the president’s actions, again.
The House Speaker told reporters on Wednesday that he was again not fully up to date on President Donald Trump’s latest announcements, calling his lack of awareness of the president’s movements an issue of “bad timing.”
Asked by a reporter whether Congress will get involved in Trump’s proposed tariffs on European countries that don’t support the U.S. acquisition of Greenland, Johnson pivoted to the president’s ongoing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Let’s talk about Greenland. I know the president—I think he may still be speaking there," Johnson, 53, said of Trump’s speech in Davos. “I didn’t see any of that because we were in the Republican conference meeting during the timing of his speech. It was bad timing on my part.”
“I look forward to seeing it,” he continued. “My staff was handing me little notes about some of the things he was saying. I know that he has said that we will not have troops involved in Greenland, and as I had been saying for days, no one had ever anticipated or expected that would be necessary.”
Trump, 79, lashed out at NATO allies and confused his takeover target, Greenland, with Iceland multiple times during his Thursday World Economic Forum speaking engagement.
Though he backed down on his prior threats of using force to seize the world’s largest island from Denmark, the president did not stand down on his desire to acquire the autonomous territory.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable,” Trump told global business leaders on Wednesday. “But I won’t do that.”
“That’s probably the biggest statement, because people thought I would use force,” he continued. “I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force. I won’t use force.”
Johnson told reporters he wouldn’t stand in the way of Trump’s tariff authority, which the Supreme Court has yet to rule on.
“I have no intention of getting in the way of President Trump and his administration in how they’ve been using [tariffs] very effectively,” the House speaker said.
Wednesday is not the first time the Republican lawmaker has said he’s uninformed on the president’s actions.
Johnson’s many variations of “I don’t know anything about that” have been used to respond to Trump’s 60 Minutes interview, his seeking $230 million from the Justice Department, or the president’s gifted Qatar jet.
