Now that the Senate’s foreign aid bill is in the House’s hands, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is scrambling to find a plan that will help him keep his vulnerable position as speaker and placate the right flank of his party — while also continuing to find common ground with government leaders on both sides who want to continue supporting allies abroad.
Johnson is demanding a one-on-one meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss the $95 billion defense spending bill, which passed the Senate on Tuesday and includes foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. However, the meeting with Biden could be just another sign that the speaker is unsure how to move forward in his own chamber.
GOP leadership remains in the dark about what Johnson is considering, many told Politico, and several members said the bill will not go anywhere in the lower chamber.
“I’m as confused as ever about what he wants,” one House GOP source told the outlet. “He hasn’t given us any direction. … I think right now he’s in survival mode.”
Since becoming speaker after former California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ousting last year, Johnson has flown by the seat of his pants, well aware of the hard-line conservatives waiting in the shadows hovering a possible motion to vacate over his head. Now, with funding for Ukraine on the table, he is likely to face an onslaught of criticism and warnings from right-flank Republicans who are, in no certain terms, against the Senate’s foreign aid bill.
According to Politico, several options are being discussed on how to proceed. However, several of them are not in Johnson’s control. If the speaker had a firmer grasp on his caucus, he could move to combine the Senate’s legislation with H.R. 2, the House’s border bill, or seek to break up the Senate bill into pieces for separate votes. However, both moves would require cooperation from the House Rules Committee.
On the committee remain hard-line supporters of McCarthy, who retired from Congress at the end of last year. Those supporters hold a de facto veto in the committee, so any attempt from Johnson to split the Senate’s bill or move to tack on the House’s tough border legislation likely would face extreme challenges.
GOP lawmakers are pushing back against House Democrats who are calling for Johnson to schedule a vote on the defense spending bill as soon as possible. Every Democratic lawmaker already signed a shell discharge petition, so only a few Republicans would need to sign on to the measure for it to succeed. If the majority threshold of 218 signatures is met, the bill would be brought to the floor for a vote.
Johnson dismissed the bill on Tuesday, telling reporters he would “certainly oppose it.”
“[I] hope it would not be considered,” Johnson said. “The House has to work its will on this.”
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The speaker knocked the Senate’s bill ahead of its passage on Monday, arguing that senators should have “gone back to the drawing board” to include border security provisions. The Senate’s foreign aid bill came after a bipartisan agreement, which Senate Democratic and Republican leaders and the White House spent months working on to combine Ukraine aid and border security, failed in the upper chamber last week.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Johnson for comment.