Speaker Mike Johnson in just months has all but cemented his place among the weakest House leaders in its history. Alas, the Louisianan nonetheless holds enough power that he’s single-handedly blocking one of the most crucial matters of our time: bipartisan U.S. aid to Ukraine for its defense against Vladimir Putin’s murderous expansionism.
It’s not like Johnson is making a stand on principle by not scheduling a House vote. To hear him talk, he’s all for our Ukrainian allies and wants some kind of aid. But Donald Trump does not — he’s with Putin, as usual — and Johnson generally stands wherever the former president directs. Not for nothing is the novice speaker called “MAGA Mike.”
No issue holds more dire consequences if Johnson doesn’t change course — for Ukraine, peace in Europe and the United States’ security and international standing.
Johnson continues to straddle the question, saying all the right, supportive things — “Ukraine is the victim here. They were invaded,” he told reporters Wednesday — and yet doing nothing. President Joe Biden’s aid request has languished for as long as Johnson has been speaker. It’s now been a month since the Senate voted, 70 to 29, for the $95 billion foreign aid package — $60 billion for Ukraine and the rest for Israel, Taiwan and Palestinians in Gaza.
Give Johnson this much: He can take a lot of pressure, at least when he’s safely in Trump’s corner. Lately he’s been getting hit from all sides about Ukraine — from the president and congressional Democrats, sure, but also from pro-Ukraine Republicans and even from foreign leaders.
Members of both parties began trying in recent days to collect signatures from a majority of the House on two discharge petitions that would force a vote on Ukraine aid. The discharge strategy is rarely used, and it’s even more rarely successful because, by definition, the action is a slap at the party leaders who bottled up the legislation. But this could be one of the rare times.
After Johnson met privately with Polish President Andrzej Duda, he issued have-it-all-ways remarks. The statement was silent on the Ukraine aid bill yet proclaimed, “America must remain united with our friends against those who threaten our security.”
What do those words mean if they’re not an argument for aid to Ukraine?
As for “those who threaten our security,” certainly Russia looms large among those threats, at least for everyone but Trump and his sycophants. Of which Johnson is one. And that’s the problem.
As Johnson waffles, Ukrainian troops are rationing ammunition and giving ground to Russians that they could hold if they had a reliable pipeline of U.S.-made weaponry. For this country to abandon Ukraine after pledges to the contrary would not only embolden revanchist Russia, it would encourage the Chinese in their global ambitions.
As Biden said in his State of the Union address, the necessary lifeline for Ukraine “is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world.”
Johnson would deny that’s what he wants. Let’s see him prove it. In the words of McConnell: “Let the House speak.”
And if it 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.
