Trump says will attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral By way of Reuters

By way of Nathan Layne

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump mentioned he would attend subsequent week’s state funeral for Jimmy Carter, the previous U.S. president who died on Sunday on the age of 100, and predicted that simplest Space Speaker Mike Johnson may just win the vote for the Space’s best task.

As Trump entered a New Yr’s Eve Celebration at his Mar-a-Lago house in Florida on Tuesday, he used to be requested via a reporter whether or not he deliberate to be readily available for Carter’s (NYSE:) funeral on the Nationwide Cathedral on Jan. 9 in Washington, D.C..

“I do. I’m going to be there. We had been invited,” Trump mentioned, declining to mention whether or not he had spoken with any of Carter’s members of the family since his loss of life.

On the black tie gala attended via billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, Senator Ted Cruz and different supporters, Trump used to be additionally requested what message he had for Republicans who’ve no longer adopted his lead and sponsored Space Speaker Johnson’s re-election bid.

The Home is scheduled to elect a speaker on Friday following the swearing-in of the brand new Congress. Trump’s endorsement of Johnson on Monday used to be noticed as key to Johnson’s hopes of keeping up the publish he assumed in October 2023.

However the transfer via 34 Republicans to vote in opposition to Johnson’s stopgap investment invoice in December raised questions over whether or not Johnson would possibly combat to garner sufficient make stronger for re-election.

“I believe they are going to make stronger Speaker Johnson,” Trump advised journalists. “He is the one who can win presently. Nearly everyone likes him. Others are excellent, too, however they’ve 30 or 40 folks that do not like them.”

Trump used to be additionally requested about his obvious shift in stance on the usage of the H-1B visa to draw international employees, following a public dispute over this system over the last few days. Some Trump supporters imagine the visa allocations undercut American employees and pass in opposition to his “The usa First” time table.

Trump has criticized the H-1B visa previously, however in a Saturday social media publish sided with Musk in protecting it as a device to import skill. Musk, the CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:.O) and SpaceX, had vowed to visit “warfare” to maintain this system, triggering backlash on-line.

“I did not exchange my thoughts. I have all the time felt that we need to have probably the most competent folks in our nation,” Trump mentioned about this system. “We want good folks entering our nation, and we want numerous folks coming in. We’re going to have jobs like we have by no means had prior to.”