Status Report: The Ukraine Aid Vote

Supporters of Ukraine celebrate as the aid bill passes the House. Photo: RTE News

Yesterday’s House vote in support of aid to Ukraine, sending the bill on to the Senate where passage is near assured, was not only historically significant but may mark a pivot point for the GOP on the question of Russia.

For many months now, it seemed that the vote would never happen. First, the Republicans insisted upon attaching conditions to the aid bill, including prioritizing U.S. “border security.” That of course turned out to be an empty condition. After months of hard negotiations, arriving at a compromise border bill that most Democrats hated, Republicans in the House refused to even take it up, with Donald Trump insisting that a deal on the border in this election year would take away his best talking point.

That meant the fate of aid to Ukraine would rest more or less entirely upon Speaker Mike Johnson, an inexperienced, ultraconservative Christian Nationalist whose January 6 bona fides with the MAGA right were beyond reproach.

The chances looked poor, especially with Donald making clear he was opposed to any aid that would hurt his friend Vladimir.

So what changed? And what happens next? Let’s take a quick look at both of these questions.

Johnson’s long and winding path to standing with Ukraine

There is no question that Johnson’s failure to lead on this issue for six months cost lives and endangered Ukraine’s overall security. So it’s tempting to not award him any points for coming around so late to finally do the right thing.

I am not in this camp, much as I dislike everything Johnson stands for. Zooming out, it becomes clear that the GOP remains deeply divided on the question of Ukraine, mostly because a huge number of them are either part of the Putin caucus or in some way allied to it. We can see this in the final vote tally, which had 112 Republicans opposed to it and only 101 in favor.

This means that, once again, the “majority of the majority” party voted against the measure. Speaker Johnson not only failed to achieve consensus, in the end he didn’t have the backing of most of his own conference. In other words, in order to bring the bill to the floor, Johnson had to defy the wishes of most of his own party and break the long-standing “majority of the majority” rule, sometimes called the Hastert rule (named after disgraced GOP Speaker and convicted child molester, Dennis Hastert). That rule correctly notes that speakers can’t keep bringing up bills that don’t have the support of their own party because they would quickly lose the general support of their own members.

But this is what Johnson pretty much had to do to move Ukraine aid forward. Not only that, he faced a direct threat of a motion to vacate, brought by “Moscow Marjorie” Taylor Green and supported by at least other two extremists, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Paul Gosar (Q-AZ). Speaker Johnson brought the bill to the floor knowing that it would draw fire from his right flank and could cost him the speakership. He was gambling on there being enough Democrats who would do the previously unthinkable and cross party lines to support him. (Just think of the primary ads that could be run, disingenuously and out of context, against any Democrat who voted for Mike Johnson as Speaker.)

There is much speculation about why Johnson would go through all this and put his own neck on the line. Most had assumed aid to Kyiv was off the table for good once Johnson took the gavel. After all, he had voted against such aid in the past, and he had insisted that no bill would ever reach the floor unless his party’s border demands were met. This was quite frustrating to supporters of Ukraine, who were quick to point out that it was Johnson and the Republicans who had rejected the border deal—the best deal they would ever see—at Trump’s urging.

It was easy to fall into cynicism and ever despair. And when Johnson went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring, it seemed all was truly lost.

But something changed over the course of the last six months, and in the end Johnson utterly surprised his friends on the far right with his about-face on Ukraine. They wound up condemning him and calling for his head.

Based on reports, over the past six months Johnson had been huddled with actual experts at the CIA and in the Pentagon and saw the intelligence that many of his far-right conference members had not seen. It was these reports that Johnson cited for his own personal turnaround on the issue. “I really do believe the intel,” he said in remarks that marked the change in direction. And he kept urging those opposed to aid to go in themselves for a secure briefing, as he had. He was sure it would change their minds, as it had his.

The New York Times quotes his colleague, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who said Speaker Johnson in the end had wanted “to be on the right side of history.” My own sense is that the deeply Christian Johnson recoiled at what he’d now personally witnessed Russia do, including torturing and executing many Baptist evangelicals because they were proselytizing an “American” religion.

The conversion of Johnson to a pro-Ukraine stance, however it came about, marks a huge moment for democracy both abroad and at home. While Johnson’s shift came very late and at great cost, it did come. And the will of the U.S. people was at last reflected in the actions of Congress, brought about by the most improbable, formerly obscure and highly inexperienced speaker who nevertheless bucked his own party to do it.

Let’s also consider what the final bill means for the GOP. Six months ago, they could have had the same bill, but with the compromise border security bill as part of it. Now they have the same bill but no border measure to speak of. It is a humiliating defeat, and one that can be laid entirely at the feet of Donald Trump.

So what next?

Pentagon officials believe they can start moving armaments within a week to Ukraine. It may take some time for those to make a difference on the battlefield, but already the vote and the support will buoy flagging morale and despair within the nation.

When the final vote was taken, Moscow Marge was filming the scene from her seat, disgusted by the show of Ukrainian flags being waved on the House floor. She condemned Speaker Johnson as “despicable” for working on behalf of the Ukrainian and not the American people.

Other extremists also vented their fury, booing the final vote, with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) telling members from the mic, “Put those damn flags away.”

Politico was on the scene seeing if the motion to vacate would follow on right away. It reported that

lawmakers lingered in the chamber after votes on the foreign aid package closed — anxious to see if Greene or Massie would move to trigger an attempt to oust Johnson or force other protest votes. Members of the House Freedom Caucus also huddled in the center of the chamber following the vote, but ultimately did not call for additional votes.

But then a funny thing happened. Greene instead went to the Capitol steps to give a press conference, and she punted. Rather than bring the motion to vacate, with growing support for it within the extremist wing of the party, she said only that she believed Johnson should go, and that the members would now go back to their districts to hear from voters. In line with this, on the X platform she railed against Johnson as having “betrayed America once again” but then posted, “Now it’s time for my colleagues to go home and hear from their constituents.”

This is a significant backtrack. And notably, her cohorts also seem to be backing down. Rep. Massie called on Johnson to resign or face a vote, meaning he would wait to raise the question and see first if Johnson would go voluntarily like Speaker John Boehner did before.

Most of the GOP House conference doesn’t want the party to go through another round of embarrassing speaker battles, especially with so little actual time left in this congressional session. Already, Republicans are viewed by many critical swing district voters as highly dysfunctional and do-nothing—except for bills backed primarily by Democrats. That translates into deep peril for their majority, and any continued infighting will only worsen their chances in November.

For now, it seems Speaker Johnson is safe, but he understands that he has lost the confidence of the far-right from which he himself was plucked then elevated. And beyond Ukraine, there is likely not much else over which Democrats are willing to go to bat for him.

But if this should become the last major thing that Johnson accomplishes as Speaker—much like Mike Pence’s final “no” to Donald Trump’s coup scheme on January 6—it will have been worth it. When the books are written about this, Johnson will indeed be remembered as someone stood on the right side of history when it mattered most.