Trump meets with South Africa’s president as Johnson pushes to advance domestic policy bill
S President Donald Trump is meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who just arrived at the White House.
The meeting is billed as a trade engagement, but the South African government said “reframing bilateral, economic and commercial relations” was the specific focus of Ramaphosa’s US visit.
Ties between both nations have been fraught since Trump froze aid to South Africa in February over claims it was mistreating its minority White population.
And in March, the US expelled South Africa’s ambassador.
he White House is asking Speaker Mike Johnson and some key GOP holdouts to meet with President Donald Trump today to work through a major impasse on the tax and spending cuts bill, according to one of the holdouts and an administration official.
The outreach comes as a half-dozen Republican hardliners declared that they will not support Trump’s agenda on the floor, demanding more changes to the bill. Johnson said he is aiming to hold a floor vote later tonight, but he currently doesn’t have the support necessary to pass it.
A major roadblock: A group of those hardliners, including House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland, told reporters this morning the White House had agreed overnight to changes to Medicaid and to roll back certain clean energy programs — provisions they had pushed for.
But they said they’re still seeking specific details, which they declined to name.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus who has said he won’t vote for the bill, said the meeting with Trump would happen today. Trump will meet directly with them at 3 p.m. ET, a White House official said.
That official told CNN that previous talks with the House Freedom Caucus have not yet yielded progress.
Johnson has insisted the bill needs to pass this week ahead of the House’s Memorial Day recess.
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