In his first news conference as House speaker on Thursday, Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed he was committed to responding to Israel’s urgent need for aid. But if that were true, he wouldn’t be wasting time passing funding bills designed to appease his right flank but that won’t become law. The games he is playing are causing dangerous delays of vital U.S. assistance for Israelis and Ukrainians at war.
By Josh Rogin
It’s bad enough that the House GOP leadership vacancy mess caused weeks of congressional inaction on urgent national security funding needs. Now, the funding bill Johnson pushed through the House on Thursday afternoon by a 226-196 vote provides only $14 billion in Israel aid, ignoring the rest of the Biden administration’s $106 billion request for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other items. The Senate will now try to pass a different bill covering all these issues and send it back to the House. Johnson will then likely split that legislation into several bills and pass them back to the Senate individually — creating weeks of avoidable delays.
As a sop to the MAGA wing of his party, Johnson’s bill also further politicizes the Israel issue at the worst possible time. It contains a policy rider that would defund IRS enforcement, a nonstarter for the White House and the Senate. This policy change would add nearly $27 billion more to the deficit rather than offsetting the cost of the Israel aid, as Johnson claims.
The House GOP approach “is really dangerous in multiple ways both for Israel and for Ukraine,” a senior administration official told me. There’s a sense in parts of the Republican Party that Israel aid is more urgent than Ukraine aid. But that’s fundamentally wrong. The delay in Ukraine funding “is already materially affecting the size and makeup of the packages that we are sending,” the official said.
Not everyone is so pessimistic. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) emerged from a GOP Senate conference lunch with Johnson on Wednesday reassured that the House — one way or another — will eventually pass Israel aid, Ukraine aid and border funding. Graham said in an interview that the speaker is trying to balance his members’ political concerns with real U.S. national security interests.
“He’s not where I’m at, but he’s by no means an isolationist,” Graham told me. “And I think he’s got a really balanced view of the politics of the moment and needs of the future.”
Johnson told the senators he wanted the administration to answer his list of questions about the war in Ukraine. Administration officials said they are working on Johnson’s questions. House GOP aides told me that Johnson might be looking for cover for some of his members to eventually vote for Ukraine aid. But opposition to Ukraine aid among Republicans is high and its passage is far from guaranteed.
Johnson will likely end up putting forth an Israel aid bill without any conditions. And then, once it passes, he will offer a Ukraine aid bill with lots of partisan conditions. As the clock runs out, Democrats might have to accept big cuts in Ukraine aid and concessions on border funding to get it done. That would set a terrible precedent.
Conservatives point out that Democrats on the far left would then likely use the same tactic, conditioning future Israel aid to advance their own partisan priorities. Most pro-Israel groups view preserving the bipartisan nature of aid to Israel as crucial.
“The pro-Israel community will win this fight over military aid to Israel,” Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me. “But what is happening to Ukraine support is an early warning over what could happen in subsequent rounds to Israel as the isolationist wings of both parties abandon the defense of American allies.”
There’s a sense that the administration doesn’t truly understand how much the GOP has changed on foreign policy. For example, Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), a longtime opponent to Israel aid, is now on the powerful House Rules Committee. Populist figures such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are openly against giving Israel even one more U.S. taxpayer dollar.
Johnson faces the same basic challenge as did his predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy (Calif.): He must placate the MAGA crowd while presenting himself to everyone else as a serious person. McCarthy’s strategy was to tell each side what it wanted to hear, eventually sacrificing his credibility with both. Johnson seems headed down a similar path.
There are other problems with the House bill — among them that it does not include any money for humanitarian aid in Gaza, which undermines a Biden administration pledge and ensures that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive in Israel Friday with nothing to offer either side of the conflict.
Meanwhile, the United States’ adversaries in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing must be crowing over their luck. U.S. dysfunction aids their aggression. Nervous European partners are getting a grim preview of what foreign policy in a second Trump administration could look like. And America’s allies in Israel and Ukraine are paying the deadly price.
