Adam Smith predicts Democrats would rescue Johnson from revolt over Ukraine

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee predicts members of his own party will rush to the rescue if Chairman Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) faces a revolt within the Republican Party over aid to Ukraine.

“Democrats will support Mr. Johnson,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said this week.

Since becoming Speaker of the House of Commons last year, Mr Johnson has said he supports new funding for Ukraine’s beleaguered military. But some conservatives in the Republican conference fiercely oppose such proposals.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has indicated she would launch an effort to oust Johnson if he passes the Ukraine bill.

Amid the Republican bickering, Smith said that if Johnson worked to ensure that his top legislative priorities, including funding for the federal government and a foreign aid package centered around aid for Ukraine, passed the House, Democrats would He predicted that he would help Mr. Johnson stay in power. He is expected to pass the Senate within days.

When former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was the subject of a motion to resign in October, no Democrats voted to save him.

“If we get a vote on the spending bill and a vote on the supplemental bill, I think enough Democrats will not remove Mr. Johnson as speaker,” Smith said. “That’s just my opinion.”

In that pledge, Mr. Smith joins a handful of other Democrats who are open to the idea of ​​Mr. Johnson crossing the aisle to weather a possible coup attempt — if Mr. Johnson If we agree to increase the influence of the Democratic Party.

Prime Minister Johnson has so far been less than enthusiastic about his plans for the bill.

“We are allowing the process to proceed and we will process it as soon as it is submitted,” he told reporters this week.

The bipartisan Senate security policy initially combined a series of foreign aid provisions, including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and Gaza, with stricter security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border. But the border provisions were rejected by Republicans in both chambers as too lenient, forcing Senate Democratic leaders to remove the border language and move the foreign aid in a separate package.

The bill is expected to pass the Senate within days, but some House conservatives have already warned that they will not fund a single dollar of new foreign aid as long as the migrant crisis at the southern border continues. are doing.

Many of these conservatives are pressuring President Biden to take executive action on border issues, including implementing the “Remain in Mexico” policy adopted under former President Donald Trump, but the southern border remains secure. The House of Representatives has warned that there is no chance the House will pass aid to Ukraine until Safe.

Mr. Trump himself is stirring up this opposition, insisting that the issue should be left to him as he rushes back to the White House.

“If the president were to secure the southern border, which he could do with today’s executive order, that would give him more room to figure out how to raise money for Ukraine. Many on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress will support it,” Rep. Byron Donald (R-Fla.) said this week. “But that won’t happen without a secure southern border.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), another sharp critic of increased funding to Ukraine, led the effort to overthrow former Prime Minister Johnson, but now he is pushing Johnson to keep the Senate bill from consideration. I have warned Mr.

“There’s a sense of celebration about killing that bad Senate amnesty war bill, and we might have to kill some more,” Gaetz said.

“I urge the Chairman to pay some price for any foreign aid,” he added.

The clearest threat came from Green, a frequent critic of Johnson’s leadership strategy, who threatened to introduce a motion to remove him from the chair if Johnson brought support for Ukraine to the floor.

“If he funded $60 billion to fund a war in Ukraine to continue killing an entire generation of Ukrainian men, to continue a war that is a losing battle, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Mr. Zelensky is ready for peace negotiations – yes, I will submit a motion to step down,” Green told reporters last month.

The Georgia Firebrand recently alleviated the threat. But Democrats took note, accusing Mr. Johnson and other Republican leaders of bowing to the most recalcitrant voices in the Republican conference at the expense of helping their beleaguered allies repel the Russian invasion. .

“Look at the battlefields and the ports right now. Russians are pouring into towns in eastern Ukraine. It’s incredibly vulnerable,” Smith said. “But the Ukrainians don’t have the ammunition to defeat them. And that’s what we’re making happen.”

Mr Smith pointed out that Mr Johnson this week voted on a standalone Israel aid bill with no conditions related to the southern border. The bill was supported by all but 14 Republicans, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage.

“We cannot vote regarding Ukraine, because we cannot say that Ukraine’s borders are more important than ours. But are Israel’s borders more important than ours? Do you want to explain that?” Smith said.

“So it seems to me that the intention of the House majority, and by extension the House Republican majority, in favor of defending Ukraine should at least be given the opportunity to vote.”