By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
The U.S. Senate is expected to ratify $95 billion in foreign aid after the House over the weekend passed major funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as a measure forcing Chinese-owned share of TikTok to be sold or the app will be banned in the U.S.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pulled off the feat, but now he faces the fallout from his own party that could cost him his speakership.
The spending plan allotted about $61 billion for Ukraine, about $8 billion meant to bolster Taiwan and the surrounding region mostly from Chinese aggression, as well as about $26.4 billion for Israel, which is at war with terrorist group Hamas and has exchanged fire with Iran.
With every vote, Republican opposition to the Ukraine funding has grown louder, with many pointing out the southern border crisis goes unaddressed even as Ukraine gets more funding.
“Speaker Johnson proved today that the only border he cares about is Ukraine’s,” U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., wrote on X, formerly Twitter, over the weekend.
Green has filed a motion to oust Johnson from the speakership.
“Those who voted to fund Ukraine’s borders instead of America’s KNEW for certainty that the separate (unattached to Ukraine) border security was going to die in the Senate, and are now dying for cover – so they’re casting blame,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X. “Own it.”
Johnson said he cannot do his job while worrying about a motion to vacate, and some Democrats have suggested they would vote to save Johnson in the speakership, according to media reports.
“I’ve done what I believe to be the right thing…” Johnson told reporters.
Green told Fox News over the weekend that if Johnson doesn’t resign he will be vacated, but it’s unclear if she will make good on that threat.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has joined Green’s effort to vacate, but he also has called on Johnson to resign so that the motion will not have to be filed.
“This is the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson,” Massie said on X alongside a video clip of Democrats waving Ukrainian flags on the House floor. “Democrats are celebrating his total capitulation with no victory for securing our border.”
Massie also said “Democrats run” Johnson.
Johnson received praise from President Joe Biden after the vote and is expected to sign off on the spending if it makes it to his desk.
“I want to thank Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House who voted to put our national security first,” Biden said in a statement over the weekend. “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”
Rarely see someone self immolate like this.
Who else is not voting for Dan Sullivan? At this point he’s undistinguishable from Democrats, Murkowski, or Peltola. Another problem for Dan is the Democrats won’t save him like they did for Murky.
Agreed. Amazing how they turn on us the second the votes are counted.
Alaska roads and infrastructure is in disrepair and the carpet-bagger sends another $100 billion overseas. Ignores domestic borders and sends ukraine $300 million for border security.
When another nations flag is waved in your capitol it, then you are a conquered people.
What are witnessing is the end of the republican party as we know it. It is a painful process. I do know that the “establishment” wing, those who are simply progressives driving the speed limit, will find much more comfort in the democrat party. As they already do. Johnson is among these people.
They own the 33.7 trillion debt. The open borders. The endless, unnecessary,and unprofitable wars. The stifling bureaucratization and grasping state control of every segment of American life. The ever present panopticon of alphabet agencies watching us all. The horrific way they see children and families. Their sexual depravity. Their time is gonna come and I rest in that.
I hope all who voted for this travesty choke on their (borrowed) ducats. It also revealed (again) Trump’s utter lack of political skill or courage by tacitly backing this horror show. I highly doubt I will vote for republicans again unless they are clear and confirmed populists.
We are printing money for everybody but the US taxpayer.
Nothing wrong with that as these politicians steal and lie to still stay in power.
Correction: “Ukraine vote demonstrates Johnson’s deep state blackmailed status and uniparty credentials.”
Marjorie Green is exactly correct here, in every way. Johnson is just another co-opted and compromised tool of the neocon warmongering establishment and the fascist deep state power structure. The question is, who in Congress is not?
Green is a Putin pawn.
Go get another clot shot booster, Greg.
And keep wearing that mask!
There you go again. Somebody disagrees with you and typically you come out from under the porch like a yipping dog. So predictable.
He was blackmailed to work with the dems to pass fisa and this unnecessary spending package.
I don’t always agree with MTG, but her statement in response to this vote is exactly correct.
Voting up or down on assistance to Ukraine was probably the right thing to do. That said, the result is horrible. A proxy war against Russia on the border of Russia is a really poor idea. We will just end up with more corruption in Ukraine and more dead Ukrainians. In the US we will have more war profiteering, more corruption in the national security agencies and more bureaucratic thuggery. Plus ten percent to be held by Hunter for the Big Guy.
Then maybe Putin shouldn’t have invaded another sovereign nation. None of this would be under discussion if he had stayed within his own borders.
Maybe we ought not have broken the agreements made by Bush#1 to Gorbachev to not expand NATO eastward? Helmut Kohl also pledged that Germany would abide by this agreement.
Can you imagine a hostile military alliance next to the border of the United States? It would not be tolerated at all. Oh yeah… The Cuban missile crisis…
No agreement like the one you claim was ever made much less formalized. Robert Zoellik, who was Under Secretary of State in the early 80s, and one of the diplomats in the room as negotiations to formally end the Cold War and reunify Germany were going on, said (as did Gorbachev) that there was NEVER any promise not to expand NATO. What you’re doing is parroting Putin talking points. Also, the last time I checked, we didn’t invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nice try though.
Cuban Missile Crisis indeed. Amazing the double-standards out there.
Democrats “running” Johnson sounds a whole lot like what Alaskan democrats do with the #akgop minus a few real conservatives.
Time to end the charade of two parties in Washington. They should just run as one unified war party.
How much of this $100 billion of tax money goes directly to Wall Street?
Repubs and Demos = Uniparty
Evil in our time.
This vote didn’t test Johnson’s strength. It displayed his weakness for the entire nation and the world to see. I was hopeful for this guy. You had a shot, buddy, and you blew it. This is all on you. Now, as far as I’m concerned, he joins the clown show.
A $34 trillion dollar debt, open border, massive crime across America, failing schools, roads, and ever increasing taxes, esp. at the state and local level… And we give away $100 billion, money that we do not have.
Johnson is a POS. He must be removed.
The fact of the matter is that the US Armed Forces would not be able to achieve the resistance against Russia that Ukraine has mounted over the past two years. We have an affirmative action military, as exemplified very well by the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chief. We have a male US Navy admiral that wears a dress! We have open homosexuals training for combat. We have not won a war since WWII, and coincidentally we have not won a war since the US Armed Forces were integrated.
Even if an American agrees with DEI and affirmative action, which I do not, no American should want DEI and affirmative action in our military! That is a recipe for losing wars.
No one wants to talk about WHY US veterans are committing suicide. The suicides would largely stop if we won wars. How many committed suicide after WWII, the war we won?
Ukraine is protecting the United States from Russia, and quite likely from China. It is that simple. Finland knows that. Estonia knows that. Poland knows that. We know it but are afraid to talk about it. Fox and CNN are afraid to talk about it. Biden’s handlers are afraid to talk about it. The way we left Afghanistan emboldened Putin, and in that respect and many others the US, especially Obama, is responsible for the deaths in Ukraine. And we lost in Afghanistan much like we lost in Viet Nam. We are afraid to talk about it.
Everyone I know, especially including veterans, believes that the US military we had in WWII could have won in Viet Nam, and in Afghanistan in one year. We would have known why we were there, taken the country in each case, acre by acre and keeping the ground we won, and the victories would have been clear and decisive. And no suicides afterwards. Ukraine is fighting and I hope we are learning.
More Americans died because of Fentanyl and insecure border than any American killed in Ukraine explain that senators and congressman. We are tired of putting our children in boxes in the ground and our representatives that do nothing.
The GOP doesn’t want any funding for border security, nor do they want to do anything to secure it until/unless Trump gets back into the White House. They’re all his yes-men and butt kissers.
As it pertains to the title of this article, Johnson proved that he has no strength in buckling to pressure or… just showed his real colors.