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On Sunday, in a leaked call with GOP members, Johnson went further, saying he wouldn’t accept any Senate deal and that he doesn’t think the border issue can be solved until a Republican becomes president.
GOP supporters of Ukraine aid, who rightly warn that letting it run out would be a disaster, are increasingly concerned that the MAGA right-wingers will succeed in halting the vital military assistance.
“The speaker is going to have to make a hard decision about what to do,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), told me. “If we abandon our NATO allies and surrender to [Vladimir] Putin in Ukraine, it’s not going to make the world safer, it’s going to make the world more dangerous. … [Ronald] Reagan would never have surrendered to the Soviet Union. Maybe that’s a shift in our party.”
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McCaul said Johnson might chop up the Senate proposal and send it back in pieces, or he might send over an entirely different House bill. Either way, the effect will be that any Senate-struck agreement won’t reach the president’s desk intact or anytime soon. Several Hill aides said the earliest a supplemental funding bill could realistically be completed is early March. By then, GOP support for passing anything related to immigration or Ukraine will have eroded even further under Trump’s relentless barrage.
Inside the White House meeting, top Biden national security officials gave detailed and grave warnings about what such a delay would mean for Ukraine’s battlefield situation. Johnson responded by blaming the administration for mismanaging the war. He seemed to feel no ownership of the calamity his MAGA-dominated conference’s lack of action could precipitate.
Johnson is able to deflect responsibility for now by pointing out that Senate negotiators haven’t come to terms. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is telling House members that the Senate’s bill could be brought to the floor next week. Of course, that’s what he said two weeks ago. To the Democrats’ lead negotiator, Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), Johnson and the House GOP are to blame for linking the border issue to the Ukraine aid in the first place, then stepping back from negotiations.
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“Everyone knows the only way border policy can pass is if it’s bipartisan,” Murphy told me. “The Senate can’t wait for House Republicans to acknowledge reality, so we are working to find a bipartisan solution to this problem. Maybe House Republicans should do less complaining and more compromising.”
But Johnson has no political motivation to move against his right wing and defy Trump to support a Senate compromise. Why give President Biden a win on the border going into the general election? Setting extremist standards for immigration reform was part of MAGA’s plan to kill both efforts all along. They cynically calculated that the result would be too complicated and controversial to pull off.
The MAGA strategy is insidious: actively killing aid to Ukraine while refusing to admit as much. But make no mistake, if Congress lets Ukraine aid lapse without acting, the history books will hold Johnson and Trump responsible for helping Russia win the war.
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Contrary to the positivity expressed after Wednesday’s White House meeting, prospects for passing any deal on immigration policy and Ukraine aid in the Republican-led House are near zero this month and even slimmer in the months to come. From the beginning, far-right House Republicans have intended to kill the aid by linking it to immigration reform — and the White House and Senate fell into the MAGA trap.
The fate of both efforts falls on one man, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is beholden to his right wing and to former president Donald Trump. It is increasingly evident that Johnson (R-La.) has no actual plan or political incentive to compromise on either issue. The result is a legislative mess that will likely result in no Ukraine funding coming out of Congress this month or perhaps ever. U.S. support for Ukraine could dry up — a nightmare scenario for Ukraine and for U.S. strategy in Europe.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after the two-hour White House session that he was “more optimistic than ever before” that Senate negotiators were close to a deal. The envisioned legislation would provide about $60 billion in Ukraine-related funding as well as billions more for the border, replenishing U.S. weapons stocks, European security, Israel and the Indo-Pacific. But such optimism ignores the dynamics inside the House Republican conference, where Trump’s allies are already working to kill the deal before it can take solid form.
Johnson’s mixed messages after the meeting were a giveaway. On Wednesday afternoon, he called the White House meeting “productive,” and said there was “some consensus” on how to get a deal done. But hours later, he said on Fox News that he is closely consulting with Trump, who is actively campaigning against any compromise.
On Sunday, in a leaked call with GOP members, Johnson went further, saying he wouldn’t accept any Senate deal and that he doesn’t think the border issue can be solved until a Republican becomes president.
GOP supporters of Ukraine aid, who rightly warn that letting it run out would be a disaster, are increasingly concerned that the MAGA right-wingers will succeed in halting the vital military assistance.
“The speaker is going to have to make a hard decision about what to do,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), told me. “If we abandon our NATO allies and surrender to [Vladimir] Putin in Ukraine, it’s not going to make the world safer, it’s going to make the world more dangerous. … [Ronald] Reagan would never have surrendered to the Soviet Union. Maybe that’s a shift in our party.”
McCaul said Johnson might chop up the Senate proposal and send it back in pieces, or he might send over an entirely different House bill. Either way, the effect will be that any Senate-struck agreement won’t reach the president’s desk intact or anytime soon. Several Hill aides said the earliest a supplemental funding bill could realistically be completed is early March. By then, GOP support for passing anything related to immigration or Ukraine will have eroded even further under Trump’s relentless barrage.
Inside the White House meeting, top Biden national security officials gave detailed and grave warnings about what such a delay would mean for Ukraine’s battlefield situation. Johnson responded by blaming the administration for mismanaging the war. He seemed to feel no ownership of the calamity his MAGA-dominated conference’s lack of action could precipitate.
Johnson is able to deflect responsibility for now by pointing out that Senate negotiators haven’t come to terms. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is telling House members that the Senate’s bill could be brought to the floor next week. Of course, that’s what he said two weeks ago. To the Democrats’ lead negotiator, Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), Johnson and the House GOP are to blame for linking the border issue to the Ukraine aid in the first place, then stepping back from negotiations.
“Everyone knows the only way border policy can pass is if it’s bipartisan,” Murphy told me. “The Senate can’t wait for House Republicans to acknowledge reality, so we are working to find a bipartisan solution to this problem. Maybe House Republicans should do less complaining and more compromising.”
But Johnson has no political motivation to move against his right wing and defy Trump to support a Senate compromise. Why give President Biden a win on the border going into the general election? Setting extremist standards for immigration reform was part of MAGA’s plan to kill both efforts all along. They cynically calculated that the result would be too complicated and controversial to pull off.
The MAGA strategy is insidious: actively killing aid to Ukraine while refusing to admit as much. But make no mistake, if Congress lets Ukraine aid lapse without acting, the history books will hold Johnson and Trump responsible for helping Russia win the war.
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