House leaders toil to advance Ukraine and Israel aid. But threats to oust speaker grow

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders in the House of Representatives on Thursday worked on a delicate, bipartisan push toward weekend votes to approve a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as several other national security policies, at a critical moment at home and abroad.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson this week set in motion a plan to advance the package, which has been held up since October by Republican lawmakers opposed to approving more funding for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. As the Republican chairman faced outright rebellion from his right flank and mounting threats of his impeachment, it became clear that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries would have to help Johnson every step of the way.

“This is a very important message that we are going to send to the world this week, and I am keen to get it done,” Johnson said earlier Wednesday as he announced his strategy.

The growing momentum for bipartisanship, a rarity in the deeply divided Congress, brought rare scenes of Republicans and Democrats working together to reassert the U.S. position on the world stage and aid U.S. allies. But it also threw Johnson’s Republican majority in the House of Representatives into new chaos.

Johnson’s Republican leadership team seized the opportunity to outflank hardline conservatives with Democratic support and floated the idea of ​​quickly changing procedural rules to make it harder to oust the speaker from office.

The idea being put forward would be to include a rule change in the emerging national security package, which would raise the threshold for the so-called ‘motion to vacate’, which can currently be made by any lawmaker called to remove the speaker.

Ultraconservatives reacted furiously, angrily confronting Johnson on the House floor in a tense scene.

“If he wants to change the motion to leave, he should come to the Republican conference that elected him and tell us what his intentions are,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a top ally of Donald Trump who is leading the campaign to oust him.

Greene said that if Johnson follows through with his plan, “he will prove exactly what I said is right: He is the Democratic speaker.”

After Johnson’s call in the House of Representatives, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who spearheaded the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker last year but has so far refrained from participating in Greene’s efforts, said that it made him want Johnson too. as a speaker.

“It’s my red line now,” added Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado. “I told him there is nothing that will get you to a motion to leave faster than changing the threshold.”

At the same time, a floor above the turmoil in the House chamber, a rare display of bipartisan statecraft was on display as the Procedural Rules Committee began debating launching the steps needed to move the foreign aid package to the vote in the House. weekend to push.

The Republican chairmen of the powerful Appropriations and Foreign Affairs committees, along with their top Democratic counterparts, used suggestive language, some of which drew on the history of World War II, to ensure that the US stands with its allies against the aggressors.

Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul called this a “pivotal” time in world history, comparing current images of people fleeing conflict in Europe to the situation in 1939 when Hitler’s Germany came to power.

“Time is not on our side,” he told the panel.

The top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Greg Meeks of New York, echoed McCaul’s urgency: “The camera of history is rolling.”

Johnson is trying to put forward a complex plan to hold individual votes this weekend on funds for Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Asia-Pacific, and then stitch the package back together.

The package would also include legislation allowing the US to seize frozen assets from Russia’s central bank to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and possibly ban video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year.

As Johnson tries to stay close to Trump and position the national security package as a way to assert American strength in the world in the mold of Ronald Reagan-era Republicans, the speaker finds himself at odds politically. with the anti-interventionists who are vying for power. former president’s attempt to return to the White House.

“Why doesn’t Europe give more money to help Ukraine?” Trump wrote on social media, but his post did not explicitly oppose the foreign aid package before Congress.

President Joe Biden is strongly urging Congress to pass legislation to support what has been a cornerstone of his foreign policy — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe.

“With the boost of additional aid, the Ukrainians are fully capable of sustaining themselves through 2024, breaking Putin’s arrogant view that time is on his side,” CIA Director Bill Burns told an audience at the Bush Center on Thursday in Dallas.

Earlier, Democratic leaders huddled behind closed doors with their caucus to discuss the foreign aid package and the extent to which they would help advance it through the procedural maneuvers in the Rules Committee to bring it up.

Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark told reporters after the meeting that Democrats were “open to help.”

“This is a moment in history when we must ensure that we finally bring up this crucial aid to Ukraine,” she said.

The ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus urged Republicans to prevent the package from advancing to a final vote. The group demanded that sweeping immigration enforcement be added to the bill and derided it as the “America Last” supplemental package for foreign wars.

Rarely, if ever, does the minority party help the majority through the procedural hoops, especially in the House Rules Committee or during the various votes before final approval. It would be a level of bipartisanship unprecedented in this Congress, even as Republican leaders saw their own priority bills rejected by their own members after procedural votes.

But given the high stakes of the moment for Ukraine, Israel and other allies, and Johnson’s inability to secure enough Republican support, the speaker will have no choice if he plans to pass the national security package.

Yet Democrats also tried to exert maximum influence now that Johnson’s job is in jeopardy.

Privately, Clark advised rank-and-file lawmakers not to reveal their positions on whether they would vote to help defeat a motion to remove Johnson as chairman, although a handful of Democrats have already publicly said they likely would doing.

“Don’t box yourself in with a public statement,” Clark told them, according to a person familiar with the comments.

Lawmakers have said the world is watching and waiting for the next steps, but there is still a long way to go. If the House can approve the package this weekend, it will still have to go to the Senate for a new round of voting.