President Joe Biden and his administration have been accused of speaking hypocritically for partisan gain on various issues, as evidenced recently by their handling of a failed Senate border deal proposal and foreign aid to Ukraine and other allied nations.
According to the New York Post, Biden expressed willingness on Monday to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for a direct discussion on border security issues and the Ukraine aid package.
However, this apparent openness to dialogue comes after previous reports of the White House rejecting requests for one-on-one meetings with Johnson in recent weeks.
As President Biden returned from a weekend at his Delaware vacation home, he was questioned by reporters about the possibility of meeting with Speaker Johnson to negotiate an agreement on the pending Ukraine aid.
Biden replied, “Sure, I’d be happy to meet with him if he has anything to say.”
In response to that remark, a spokesman for the speaker, Raj Shah, told the Post in a statement, “We welcome the president’s reversal and openness to meeting with Speaker Johnson about the best path forward for securing the nation. It’s long overdue.”
“We look forward to hearing from the White House when he’ll be available for a one-on-one meeting that the Speaker has requested for weeks,” he added.
The Post noted that Speaker Johnson had recently informed reporters that he had been attempting to schedule a meeting with President Biden, only for his request to be immediately rejected by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on the same day.
According to The Hill, Johnson told reporters on Wednesday, “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.”
“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,” he added.
However, just hours after the Wednesday press briefing, Jean-Pierre claimed that a meeting or further negotiations with Speaker Johnson were not necessary.
She stated that solutions to the problems had already been presented to Johnson by the White House and Senate, but he had rejected them as inadequate in addressing the issues effectively.
When asked about Johnson’s assertion that his requests for a meeting had been repeatedly turned down, the press secretary responded by questioning the need for negotiations when Johnson had already been given what he requested. She suggested that Johnson was essentially negotiating with himself and hindering progress.
It remains to be seen whether the White House will indeed act on President Biden’s apparent change of heart and willingness to meet with Speaker Johnson to address urgent matters such as accountability for the proposed $60 billion aid package for Ukraine and America’s involvement in the conflict with Russia.
Regarding border security, Johnson and House Republicans opposed the Senate’s deal for not adequately addressing border concerns.
They criticized it for potentially perpetuating Biden’s lenient immigration policies and granting unnecessary powers to the president despite existing laws providing sufficient tools for securing borders.
