WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson, facing a choice between potentially losing his job and moving forward with aid to Ukraine, moved Wednesday toward a vote later this week on a funding package that also includes Israel and Taiwan.
After spending days agonizing over how to proceed with the package, the Republican president sent a text message to GOP lawmakers saying he will begin a days-long push to hold votes on three funding packages for Ukraine, Israel and allies in Indo- Pacific, as well as several other foreign policy proposals in a fourth bill.
Johnson said he was proposing that some aid to Kiev be structured as loans, along with greater oversight, but the decision to support Ukraine angered populist Conservatives in the House and gave new energy to the threat to remove him as speaker. . desk.
“By publishing the text of these bills as soon as they are completed, we will ensure time for a robust amendment process,” Johnson wrote in his message, which was shared by two Republican lawmakers.
Votes on the package are expected Saturday night, Johnson said. But he faces a treacherous path to get there.
The House speaker will almost certainly need Democratic support in procedural maneuvers to move forward with his complex plan to hold separate votes on each of the aid packages.
It was unclear whether Democrats would help Johnson. They were still awaiting the details of the legislation and became increasingly impatient with its deliberations.
Democrats demanded that the foreign aid bill come closer to the $95 billion foreign aid package the Senate approved in February. This legislation would fund U.S. allies as well as provide humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican,’s threat to unseat Johnson gained support this week. Another Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said he was joining Greene and called for Johnson’s resignation. Other Republican lawmakers have openly complained about Johnson’s leadership.
“You are seriously out of step with Republicans by continuing to pass bills that depend on Democrats,” Greene wrote on social platform X. “Everyone realizes this.”
In an effort to satisfy conservatives, Johnson said he would hold a separate vote on a border security package that contains most of a bill that already passed House Republicans last year. That bill has already been rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate, and conservatives quickly denounced the plan to hold a separate vote on it as insufficient. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas called the strategy a “total failure.”
The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus posted on the X Johnson had was “giving up the last opportunity we have to combat the border crisis.”
As part of the foreign aid effort, Johnson also said House members would have the opportunity to vote on a series of foreign policy proposals, including allowing the U.S. to seize frozen assets from the Russian central bank, imposing sanctions on Iran, Russia and China, and potentially ban video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake.
The precarious effort to approve foreign aid comes as lawmakers focused on national security warn that the House must act after waiting nearly two months for Johnson to raise the issue of foreign aid.
On the House Intelligence Committee, the Republican chairman, Rep. Mike Turner, and the top Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes, issued a joint statement Tuesday saying they were told in a classified briefing that it was important to provide funding to Ukraine this week.
“The United States must take a stand against Putin’s war of aggression now, as Ukraine’s situation on the ground is critical,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
Still, there was growing recognition in the House that Johnson may soon leave the speaker’s office.
“This is a chance to do the right thing,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said this week. “If you pay for this, you will be known in history as the man who did the right thing, even if it cost him a job.”
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