GOP infighting over Ukraine creates minefield for Speaker Johnson

Republican infighting over government funding has created a minefield for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as he seeks to avert a shutdown this election year without losing his gavel to a conservative coup.

But the deeper threat to Johnson’s Speakership appears to revolve around a separate debate that’s splitting Republicans in increasingly explosive ways: the fight over new spending for Ukraine.

Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, has vowed to support another round of military assistance for Kyiv, where top officials are warning of dwindling supplies in their long-running fight to repel invading Russian forces.

But the notion of sending additional billions of dollars to Ukraine has fallen sharply out of favor among House Republicans — and the party at large — since the conflict began almost two years ago. 

And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is already warning, in no uncertain terms, that she’ll file a motion to strip Johnson of his gavel if the Speaker stages a vote on a Senate-crafted Ukraine bill, which upper chamber negotiators are trying to combine with tougher security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Greene has said she delivered that warning directly to Johnson when the two met in his office last week. And on Wednesday, the Georgia firebrand amplified that threat, telling reporters in the Capitol that the roughly $60 billion in Ukraine aid under consideration in the Senate is not only fiscally irresponsible, given America’s massive debt, but it would be wasted on “a war that is already practically lost.”

“I just told him [Johnson] it’s an absolute no-go,” Greene said. “If he funds $60 billion to fund a war in Ukraine to continue killing a whole generation of Ukrainian men — to continue a war that is a losing war, that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s ready for peace talks — yeah, I would introduce the motion to vacate myself.”

The dynamics stand in contrast to those encountered by Johnson’s predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who was ousted by disgruntled conservatives in October for cutting one too many deals with President Biden to fund the federal government.

Prompted by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), McCarthy’s undoing won the support of eight Republicans and every voting Democrat — plenty of backing given the GOP’s razor-thin House majority.

Johnson has also shown a readiness to forge agreements with the White House on government spending. He supported a short-term funding patch, known as a continuing resolution (CR), last November; he endorsed a bipartisan agreement on 2024 top-line spending figures earlier this year; and on Thursday, he backed another CR that extends agency funding into March, dismissing a last-ditch effort by his right flank to attach border provisions. 

Each of those deals has infuriated conservative spending hawks, who are demanding much steeper cuts to federal programs, but they haven’t triggered any specific threat to his Speakership — at least not yet. 

While Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has said he’s keeping the motion-to-vacate option on the table, he’s shown no inclination to go the floor and file it. And other conservatives are dismissing the idea outright. 

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the newly installed chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus, was among the eight Republicans to topple McCarthy over spending. But he recently told NBC News that the notion of doing the same to Johnson is “ridiculous.” 

Instead, the more concrete threat is coming over Johnson’s willingness to entertain new Ukraine aid and a border policy that, according to Greene, is designed to shift the balance of America’s political power for many years to come. 

“It’s really an amnesty deal where Democrats are going to bring in millions and millions of illegals and turn them into Democrat voters,” Greene said over the weekend in an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” program. “That’s their plan, is to replace Americans with millions and millions of illegal aliens.”

Johnson, for his part, has dismissed Greene’s threat, saying he understands her concerns about how Ukraine aid is being spent and that he’s “not worried” about suffering McCarthy’s fate. 

“We all have to do our jobs,” Johnson told CNN this week. “Marjorie Taylor Greene is very upset about the lack of oversight over the funding and over the lack of an articulation of a plan, as am I.”

To sweeten the Ukraine package for the conservative critics, Johnson has demanded that any new military assistance for Kyiv be combined with tough new border provisions passed by House Republicans last year. And he appears ready to reject any Ukraine bill that doesn’t meet the House Republicans’ standard for border toughness — a message Johnson said he delivered to Biden during a meeting of top leaders Wednesday at the White House.

“We must insist — must insist — that the border be the top priority,” the Speaker said after the meeting. 

The Ukraine debate has highlighted the seismic shift the Republican Party has undergone when it comes to foreign affairs — and the U.S. role in shaping them — since former President Trump took firm control of the GOP in 2016. Once the proud champions of an aggressive global strategy — one that embraced American intervention around the world in the name of protecting national interests — Republicans have broadly adopted Trump’s “America First” mantra, which proposes instead to focus Washington’s energies on domestic matters. 

Weighing in on the Ukraine debate this week, Trump amplified that position in urging House Republicans to reject any Ukraine-border package until he returns to the White House. Only then, he said, can Republicans get the “perfect” deal.

The issue has squeezed Johnson in the early stages of his Speakership, highlighting divisions in the GOP conference that party leaders are hoping to avoid in an election year.

Johnson’s October endorsement of new Ukraine aid marked a shift in his position from just a month earlier, when he joined most House Republicans in opposing $300 billion in new weapon systems for Kyiv. 

That change of heart has raised questions about whether the Speaker ever intends to stage a vote on a Ukraine package opposed by the majority of his conference — a violation of the unwritten “Hastert Rule” that’s governed the House GOP for more than a decade — or whether he’s demanding tough border provisions he knows can’t pass as a strategy for scuttling Ukraine aid and maintaining the crisis on the southern border, all while blaming the impasse on the Senate. 

In the eyes of many Democrats, it’s the latter. 

“They don’t want a solution,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D), who represents a Texas border district. 

“It’s hard for me to believe that anyone on the hard right wants to address our broken immigration system because it’s an issue they can keep pointing to over and over and over again,” she continued. “It’s easier for them to go on TV and complain about it.”

The prospect of another motion to vacate the Speakership would present Democrats with the question of whether to back it, as they did with McCarthy, or help to rescue Johnson for the sake of promoting stability in the chamber. 

Democratic leaders insist they’ve had no discussions about their strategy if such a situation arises. But some rank-and-file members have said they’d be willing to save Johnson — if he agreed to work more closely with Democrats on legislation. And some members of leadership suggested they might be open to such an arrangement. 

“If he’s willing to isolate some of the most extreme voices in his conference to work, then I think we can have a somewhat productive year,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chair of the Democratic Caucus, told reporters this week. “But if he’s willing to listen to the most extreme voices in this conference, then that’s another story.”

Emily Brooks contributed reporting.