WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson, facing a choice between potentially losing his job and advancing aid for Ukraine, forged ahead Wednesday toward a vote later this week on a package of funding that also includes Israel and Taiwan.
After agonizing over how to proceed on the package for days, the Republican speaker texted GOP lawmakers that he will start a days-long push to hold votes on three funding packages for Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Indo-Pacific, as well as a several other foreign policy proposals in a fourth bill.
Johnson said he was proposing that some of the aid for Kyiv be structured as loans, along with greater oversight, but the decision to support Ukraine at all has angered populist conservatives in the House and given new energy to a threat to remove him from the speaker's office.
“By posting text of these bills as soon as they are completed, we will ensure time for a robust amendment process,” Johnson wrote in his message, which was shared by two Republican lawmakers.
The votes on the package are expected Saturday evening, Johnson said. But he faces a treacherous path to get there.
The speaker will almost certainly need Democratic support on the procedural maneuvers to advance his complex plan of holding separate votes on each of the aid packages.
It was not clear whether Democrats would assist Johnson. They were still awaiting the details of the legislation and have become increasingly impatient with his deliberations.
Democrats have demanded that the foreign aid bill hew closely to a $95 billion foreign aid package that the Senate passed in February. That legislation would fund the U.S. allies, as well as provide humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the threat to oust Johnson from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia, gained support this week. One other Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said he was joining Greene and called for Johnson to resign. Other GOP lawmakers have openly complained about Johnson's leadership.
“You are seriously out of step with Republicans by continuing to pass bills dependent on Democrats,” Greene wrote on the social platform X. “Everyone sees through this.”
In an effort to satisfy conservatives, Johnson said he would hold a separate vote on a border security package that contains most of a bill that was already passed by House Republicans last year. That bill has already been rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate, and conservatives quickly denounced the plan to hold a separate vote on it as insufficient. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas called the strategy a “complete failure.”
The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus posted on X that Johnson had was “surrendering the last opportunity we have to combat the border crisis.”
As part of the foreign aid push, Johnson also said House members would have an opportunity to vote on a raft of foreign policy proposals, including allowing the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets, placing sanctions on Iran, Russia and China, and potentially banning the video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake.
The precarious effort to pass the foreign aid comes as lawmakers who are focused on national security warn that the House must act after waiting for nearly two months for Johnson to bring up the foreign aid.
In the House Intelligence Committee, the Republican chairman, Rep. Mike Turner, and top Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes, issued a joint statement Tuesday saying that they had been informed in a classified briefing that it was important to provide funding for Ukraine this week.
“The United States must stand against Putin’s war of aggression now as Ukraine’s situation on the ground is critical,” the lawmakers said in a statement.
Still, there was a growing acknowledgement in the House that Johnson could soon be out of the speaker's office.
“This is a chance to do the right thing,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said this week. “If you pay for it, you’ll be known in history as the man who did the right thing even though it cost him a job.”