Mike Johnson’s mini-vacation is over. The House speaker—who sojourned to Mar-a-Lago last weekend to bolster his alliance with Donald Trump—returned to work Monday to put his clout to the test, announcing that he would set up votes on his complicated plan to provide foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, despite the motion to vacate Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is dangling over his head.
“I don’t spend my time worrying about motions to vacate,” a defiant Johnson told CNN Monday. “We’re having to govern here and we’re going to do our job.”
But the House GOP—under his leadership and that of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy—has proven averse to governing throughout its majority, and it remains to be seen if Johnson has the resolve or ability to keep the conference in line. “Speaker Johnson is not holding Democrats accountable nor leading our Republican majority,” Greene seethed after he teed up his foreign aid plan. “He’s actually giving in to Democrats [sic] every demand.”
To this point, Greene has mostly stood alone in her outright push to oust Johnson over the security funding plan, which would separate the aid packages for individual votes and provide some of the Ukraine money in the form of a loan. But Johnson has left the door open to ultimately sending the aid together in a single package to the Senate, raising eyebrows among others on the right who have seemed to condition their support for Johnson on keeping Ukraine aid and Israel aid separate. “Israel funding should not be held hostage by Ukraine funding,” Arizona Republican Andy Biggs posted Monday.
If that leads to a groundswell on the right, Johnson could find himself in the same position as McCarthy did in October, when he needed support from the other side of the aisle to pass a continuing resolution aimed at keeping the government open. As Politico reports, President Joe Biden in a Monday night call expressed skepticism that Johnson’s plan would clear the Senate, which has already passed its own omnibus foreign aid package. “If I do the same thing as the Senate bill, I know we can’t process it,” Johnson reportedly told Biden. “This is the only way forward.” It’s not “anybody’s preferred path,” as a Democratic aide told the outlet. But Democrats, who have been desperately pushing for the Ukraine aid as the nation struggles to combat Russia’s offensive, may ultimately be open to anything that allows the funding to go through. “Everyone’s willing to play ball here,” the aide said.
Of course, playing ball with Democrats is what lost McCarthy the gavel—and led to his early retirement. Johnson isn’t quite there yet; Republicans are wary of another punishing speaker fight, Trump himself has so far opposed Greene’s theatrics, and some Democrats have suggested they could step in to save him if he operates in good faith. But those tailwinds can change quickly: On Tuesday, Republican Thomas Massie said he had joined Greene’s cause and called on Johnson to resign. “There’s more people,” Greene told CNN, “that are probably going to be angry from whatever happens this week.”
