Trump, GOP leaders meet at White House as president plans visit to NC, defends executive orders

Congressional Republican leaders met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and the president gave some public remarks after the White House summit.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana are expected to address the press as to what was discussed in their first meeting with the new president since he began his second term.

Trump clashed with some congressional Republicans late last year as the federal government was facing a potential shutdown that was ultimately narrowly averted. 

Other Republican leaders present at Tuesday’s meeting include House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan.

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Congressional Republican leaders met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 21, 2025. (Fox News Digital/Trump-Vance Transition Team)

On the Senate side, Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming and Conference chairs Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia were also part of the discussion.

While Trump had signed a slew of executive orders on his first day in office, he also signaled eagerness to work with congressional Republicans to pass key parts of his agenda through the legislature.

During a press availability following his meeting with Republicans, Trump mentioned the get-together as well as his new executive orders renaming Mt. Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.

He said President William McKinley was worthy of having his name put back on North America’s highest peak, quipping that his fellow Republican was known as the “tariff king” and presided over one of the strongest economies in U.S. history.

Trump claimed the U.S. was “the richest country” in the world between 1870 and 1913. McKinley had just begun his second term when he was assassinated in Buffalo, New York, in 1901.

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When asked about pardoning Jan. 6 convicts, Trump agreed it is never right to assault a police officer but suggested the press and the left have not expressed the same concern for those involved in the weekslong conflagrations in Portland, Oregon, and Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd.

Trump also spoke about stripping Secret Service protection from his former advisor John Bolton, calling the Baltimore native a “warmonger” and a “very dumb person.”

Later in his presser, Trump announced he would be visiting North Carolina and California in the coming days.

Trump made implicit reference to areas of the Smokie Mountains decimated by Hurricane Helene, claiming Democrats had abandoned the Tarheel State in the wake of the historic storm that affected a large swath of the U.S. and particularly the area from Damascus, Virginia, to Augusta, Georgia.

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Trump also appeared to suggest Democrats and Democratic policy failures in the lead-up to the Los Angeles wildfires have left the party “dead, politically” in California.

“What they’ve done is destroyed [Los Angeles],” he said, speaking of sprinklers without water and hydrants without proper water or pressure.

He said California’s leaders either have “a death wish [or] they are stupid, or there’s something else going on.”

When he travels to California, he may notably encounter one of his longtime political foes, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is now the state’s junior senator.