In just a few months, Speaker Mike Johnson has all but cemented his place among the weakest House leaders in its history. Unfortunately, the Louisianan still has enough power to single-handedly block one of the most crucial issues of our time: bipartisan American aid to Ukraine for its defense against Vladimir Putin's murderous expansionism.
It's not that Johnson is defending his principles by not programming a vote in the House. Oh no. To hear him speak, he is all for our Ukrainian allies. and want some kind of help. But Donald Trump does not do it (he is with Putin, as always) and Johnson in general He stands wherever the former president tells him to. It is not in vain that the novice speaker is called. “MAGA Mike.”
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
And no issue better illustrates the hesitancy and servility toward Trump that Ukraine has become. Johnson's identity Since October, when House Republicans ousted his predecessor, they rejected several high-ranking candidates and then, exhausted by the impasse, settled on him.
Furthermore, no issue has more dire consequences if Johnson does not change course: for Ukraine, peace in Europe, and the security and international standing of the United States.
Johnson continues to straddle the issue and says correct and supportive things: “Ukraine is the victim here. They were invaded,” he said. said reporters on Wednesday and yet they do nothing. President Biden's request for aid has languished since Johnson has been president. It has been a month since the Senate overwhelmingly approved voted70 to 29, for the $95 billion foreign aid package: $60 billion for Ukraine and the rest for Israel, Taiwan and the Palestinians in Gaza.
Give Johnson this: he can handle a lot of pressure, at least when he's safely in Trump's corner. He's been under attack from all sides lately over Ukraine: from the president and congressional Democrats, sure, but also from pro-Ukraine Republicans and even foreign leaders.
Members of both parties began trying in recent days to gather signatures from the House majority on two separate discharge petitions that would force a vote on aid to Ukraine. The discharge strategy is rarely used, and it is even rarer for it to succeed because, by definition, the action is a slap in the face to the party leaders who suppressed the legislation. But this could be one of the rare moments.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is fed up with Johnson's speech. kitten feet McConnell has rarely publicly criticized House Republicans or told them how to run his chamber. So it was a measure of his exasperation that ventilated to reporters on Tuesday: “We don't have time for all this. We have a bill that got 70 votes in the Senate. Give members of the House of Representatives the opportunity to vote on it.”
Visiting leaders from Poland, Ukraine's neighbor and our NATO ally, that same day. publicly noted Johnson for some undiplomatic complaints. “Sir, Johnson's failure to make a positive decision will cost thousands of lives” and affect “the fate of millions of people,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
After Johnson met privately with Polish President Andrzej Duda, he issued the kind of ambivalent comments for which he is now known. The statement said nothing about the Ukraine aid bill, but proclaimed: “The United States must stand united with our friends against those who threaten our security.”
What do those words mean if they are not an argument for more aid to Ukraine?
The “staying united with our friends” part is particularly rich. Contrary to what Trump and his First American Republicans would have us believe, almost all European and NATO allies they have given more assistance to Ukraine than the United States, measured as a percentage of the size of nations' economies. They panic at the prospect of an American withdrawal from the bloodiest combat in Europe since World War II.
As for “those who threaten our security,” Russia certainly looms large among those threats, at least to everyone but Trump and his sycophants.
Of which Johnson is one. And that is the problem.
Stagnant, Johnson insists that the Senate and House must first finish the long-overdue job of funding the government. But the annual spending bills won't be complete before Friday, and then Congress rushes into a 17-day recess. The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Alabama Rep. Mike D. Rogers, spoke about Johnson's timeline: “reckless.”
While Johnson hesitates, Ukrainian troops are rationing ammunition and giving ground the Russians could sustain if they had a reliable supply of American-made weaponry. CIA Director William Burns and other US intelligence officials recently warned Congress that Ukraine's losses would only increase without US help. For this country to abandon Ukraine after having promised otherwise would not only embolden revanchist Russia, but would encourage the Chinese in their global ambitions.
As Biden said in his State of the Union ADDRESSthe necessary lifeline for Ukraine “is being blocked by those who want us to abandon our leadership in the world.”
Johnson would deny that is what he wants. Let's see how he demonstrates it. In it words from McConnell: “Let the House speak.”
And if he does – with a bipartisan vote for Ukraine – that will echo the support of a majority of americans. But first Johnson must get out of the way. Or be pushed.
