Johnson set for a tough victory

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is likely to successfully square off with far-right members of his own chamber over a series of hard-fought foreign aid bills.

Johnson will need to rely on Democrats to pass legislation that deals with aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and provides measures to reduce the direct burden on U.S. taxpayers.

Democrats appear willing to support him. They overwhelmingly believe in the need for assistance, especially to Ukraine, and seem reluctant to risk it simply to cause further turmoil in the Republican conference.

President Biden also supports the bill, which totals more than $90 billion.

For now, the House plans to vote on the bill on Saturday. After that, the Senate is likely to draft one of the aid-related bills that are expected to be passed by the House of Representatives. The entire package would then be given to Biden for his signature.

So far, Johnson appears to be defying naysayers who believed he would not hold the gavel for long. Mr. Johnson finally took over as chairman in late October, following a prolonged period of internal turmoil within the Republican Party following the ouster of his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Mr. Johnson’s political fortunes have been turbulent in recent weeks, slumping in favor of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), but rebounding thanks to support from former President Trump.

Mr Green had threatened to trigger a motion to resign, which could have ended Mr Johnson’s term in office.

But in a somewhat unexpected move, Trump sided with Johnson after Johnson visited Mar-a-Lago last week, praising his “very good relationship.”

President Trump said, “I support the chairman.”

Now, more moderate Republicans are clearly hostile to Mr. Johnson, both to Mr. Greene and to another lawmaker, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who had announced his intention to support the motion to resign. I admire that.

“We’ve reached a point where we can’t afford to be held hostage by the fringe,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) 2016 presidential campaign. .

“The majority of Republicans don’t want Ukraine to surrender and support giving our allies what they need,” Conant added.

The bill in question would provide about $61 billion in aid to Ukraine as the Eastern European country warns it is in imminent danger as it seeks to repel a Russian invasion that began in February 2022. It is.

Polls show that Republican voters are more likely than Democratic voters to be skeptical of aid to Ukraine. This is a reversal of patterns seen during the Cold War, and appears to be driven by President Trump’s “America First” nationalism and public fatigue with foreign ties after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Economist/YouGov poll last month found that 49% of Republicans surveyed want to reduce military aid to Ukraine, while 24% want to maintain aid levels and 15% want to reduce military aid to Ukraine. % want increased military aid.

Prominent Republican politicians are increasingly calling it urgent to defeat the influence of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Time is not on our side,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. McCaul said these are “pivotal” times for the world.

Earlier this week, Mr Johnson referred to himself as a “wartime chairman”. In a CNN interview on Wednesday, Johnson told anchor Jake Tapper that his party is “going to stand up for freedom and make sure Vladimir Putin doesn’t march through Europe.”

But in the same interview, Mr Johnson was embroiled in an uproar in Parliament House when he hinted that he might consider changing the rules around resignation motions to require more than one MP to carry out the process.

Merely raising the idea provoked a fierce reaction from some hardliners, including Greene and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Mr Johnson hit back in a social media post on Thursday. He claimed that “many members encouraged me to support new rules to raise this standard,” adding, “I understand the importance of that idea.”

But he added, “Any rule change would require a majority of the entire House, and we don’t have that.” We will continue to govern based on existing rules.”

That seemed to be enough to quell the rising tide of rebellion.

Republican MPs widely sympathetic to Mr Johnson argued that, overall, the prime minister had done what was necessary to pass the support bill and had tried to alienate his most ardent internal critics.

“He’s smart to go ahead and get it done,” said Republican strategist Dan Judy. “I think he has given more than enough time and attention to the hard-core elements within the party, frankly far more than those elements deserve.”

Johnson isn’t out of the woods yet. Some Republicans were outraged by the fact that his approach of separating various measures into separate bills effectively killed any real possibility of beefing up border security as part of the final product. ing.

One of the five bills being pushed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson addresses this issue, but as it is currently a standalone bill, the Senate is expected to simply ignore it.

But for now, that appears to be a price most Republicans are willing to pay.

The party, which has been in major turmoil recently, appears ready to support Mr Johnson for now.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.