The Hill yesterday had some interesting analysis of just how ill-considered MAGA-Mike Johnson’s attempt to throw a monkey wrench into the Senate’s final vote on the $95B aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan actually was, which ended up passing on a 70-29 vote:
Senate GOP annoyed by new Speaker’s Ukraine move
Senate Republicans did not appreciate Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) attempt to pour cold water on their effort to pass $60 billion in funding for Ukraine and are now ratcheting up pressure on him to bring the bill to the House floor.
Johnson took the unusual step of panning the Senate bill Monday evening, moments before senators took three crucial procedural votes to advance the legislation.
Twenty minutes before the votes were to begin, Johnson released a statement declaring senators “should have gone back to the drawing border to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe.”
It was a rare example of the top Republican leader in the House meddling with the top Republican leader in the Senate’s effort to pass a bill.
Some Republican senators thought it crossed a line.
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Cramer, who served in the House from 2013-19, said he thought Johnson taking a shot at the bill right before a vote was “disrespectful” to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), given how hard he has worked to build support for it.
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One Senate Republican aide noted the Senate bill picked up five more Republican votes after Johnson “tried to kill it,” suggesting the Speaker’s disparaging comments had galvanized some Republican votes.
Cramer was one of the five Republicans who voted for the bill for the first time on the question of final passage. The other Republicans who joined him in swinging from “no” to “yes” on the final vote were Sens. Mike Crapo (Idaho), James E. Risch (Idaho), John Boozman (Ark.) and John Hoeven (N.D.).
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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of McConnell’s leadership team, said Tuesday that House Republicans would face political repercussions this year if they fail to act on the Senate bill and let Russian President Vladimir Putin turn the tide of the war.
He reiterated McConnell’s admonishment that lawmakers will be judged by future historians if they allow the funding package to languish long enough to cost Ukraine the war, which could then embolden America’s adversaries in other parts of the world.
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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) expressed disbelief about the growing influence of isolationists within the GOP.
“It would be quite a world if the Democrat Party becomes the party of national security,” he said.
The final vote actually masks just how lopsided the whole thing was, since two Democratic Senators [Merkley (D-OR) and Welch (D-VT)] who had provided crucial ‘Aye’ votes to get past the initial filibuster threshold at the start of the process felt free to join Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in opposition over the aid to Israel provisions. Likewise, if the Senate hadn’t voted down Lankford’s original bill with the border security provisions at TFG’s insistence, Lankford and a number of his Republican colleagues would obviously have voted for that version of the bill who ended up not voting for the final product. For those interested in how each of the Republican Senators ended up voting (26-N, 22-Y, 1-Not Voting):
NAY — Barrasso WY, Blackburn TN, Braun IN, Britt AL, Budd NC, Cotton AR, Cruz TX, Daines MT, Fischer NE, Graham SC, Hagerty TN, Hawley MO, Hyde-Smith MS, Johnson WI, Lankford OK, Lee UT, Marshall KS, Mullin OK, Paul KY, Ricketts NE, Rubio FL, Schmitt MO, Scott FL, Scott, SC, Tuberville AL, Vance OH.
YEA — Boozman AR, Capito WV, Cassidy LA, Collins ME, Cornyn TX, Cramer ND, Crapo ID, Ernst IA, Grassley IA, Hoeven ND, Kennedy LA, McConnell KY, Moran KS, Murkowski AK, Risch ID, Romney UT, Rounds SD, Sullivan AK, Thune SD, Tillis NC, Wicker MS, Young IN.
Not Voting — Lummis WY
Mike Johnson apparently demanded an ‘urgent’ meeting with President Biden about putting back those very border security provisions back into the Senate bill that had been stripped out in the first place, but according to Bloomberg, the White House is telling him to pound sand:
The White House dismissed Speaker Mike Johnson’s demand for direct talks with President Joe Biden to resolve an impasse over border security and Ukraine aid.
Johnson insisted on personal negotiations with the president before he would allow a House vote on $95 billion bill in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The White House countered that Johnson’s position on immigration and foreign aid has repeatedly shifted, and thus a meeting with the president would be unproductive.
“What is there to negotiate? Really? Truly? What is the one-on-one negotiation about when he’s been presented with exactly what he asked for? So, he’s negotiating with himself. He’s killing bills on his own,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Meanwhile, if the overwhelming vote in the Senate is not sufficient motivation for Johnson to bring up the Ukraine aid bill in the House, The Hill is also reporting on Democratic efforts to use a discharge petition as a last resort to do an end run around MAGA-Mike’s obstructionism:
“The prospects of a discharge petition are not great. But it is a sort of act of last resort, and it’s available to us, and it is a mechanism, and it has been used sparingly in the past,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said. “And this is so important I wouldn’t rule that out if that’s what we have to do.”
The discharge petition is hardly the preferred route for Ukraine’s Democratic allies. Rather, they’re urging Johnson to change his tune and bring the Senate bill to the floor, where it would likely pass with a big bipartisan vote.
Connolly, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, predicted Tuesday that the Senate package would win more than 300 votes if it comes to the floor — a forecast echoed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
“It’s not too much to ask … that we get an up-or-down vote and let the House of Representatives actually work its will, as opposed to allowing Donald Trump [to] work his will and block our national security priorities,” Jeffries said.
