Senate

Senate GOP urges Johnson to stand up to ‘chaos caucus’

by Alexander Bolton - 04/09/24 6:00 AM ET

Senate Republicans are urging Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to stand up to the “chaos caucus” in the House GOP and move forward with legislation providing funds to Ukraine and Israel.

GOP senators are encouraging Johnson to face down critics, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who are threatening to oust him from the Speakership. They say House backbenchers shouldn’t dictate U.S. national security policy.

“He needs to count the votes, and I think there’s a substantial majority in the House who would vote in favor of the defense supplemental, and he needs to do the courageous and correct thing to stand by our ally,” Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said of Johnson.

Wicker acknowledged the Speaker faces a difficult situation, but he predicted he would survive any motion advanced by Greene or another conservative rebel to oust him.

“I don’t think there’s a majority of the House that will vacate the Speaker’s position right now,” he said.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) has dubbed the handful of House conservatives threatening Johnson’s job in leadership as the “chaos caucus.”

They could force a snap election on Johnson by advancing a motion to vacate, a tactic Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) used to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year.

Greene filed a motion to vacate against Johnson on March 22, just before Congress left town for a recess.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), an outspoken advocate for helping Ukraine, said it’s time for Johnson to “look past” his critics within the House GOP conference.

“I think that Speaker Johnson understands the critical importance of supporting Ukraine, and if that means he’s got to look past a few of his members who I think have a different position, absolutely” he should stand up to Republicans threatening to trigger the motion to vacate, he said.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) questions Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing for the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress on Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Greg Nash)

Tillis said Democrats would have an obligation to protect Johnson by voting for him to retain his Speakership because doing otherwise would derail military aid for Ukraine.

“If there’s a motion to vacate on the Ukraine issue, the Democrats will be able to demonstrate if they truly are committed to Ukraine by preventing it from being able to be successful, and it’s within the Democrats’ power to do it,” he said.

“This is about leadership, right? Everybody talks about being bipartisan. This would give them a really good opportunity to be bipartisan on something that’s critically important. Hopefully they will,” Tillis said of the prospect of Democrats helping Johnson.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is voicing exasperation over the lack of movement in the House, nearly two months after the Senate passed a $95 billion emergency foreign aid package that included $60 billion for Ukraine.

McConnell warned Monday that the failure to provide military aid to Ukraine and bolster the domestic defense industry through new spending would encourage China’s growing aggression in the South China Sea and other parts of Asia.

“America’s national security depends on sustained investment in both cutting-edge capabilities and expanded defense industrial capacity,” he said on the Senate floor.

“That’s why I continue to insist on overdue steps like the full-year defense appropriations and national security supplemental the Senate passed earlier this year,” he added.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday blamed recent losses suffered by Ukrainian forces on the lack of House action.

“The situation in Ukraine is desperate. Speaker Johnson has sat on his hands for 55 days as the national security supplemental has collected dust in the House,” he said on the Senate floor.

“The biggest reason Ukraine is losing the war is because the hard right has paralyzed the United States from acting,” he declared.

Senators expect Johnson to unveil the House’s version of the Ukraine aid bill during the upcoming two-week work period, and they warn he shouldn’t let House conservatives derail it.

House members will fly back to Washington on Tuesday, and House Republicans are scheduled to hold a conference meeting Wednesday morning, when they will have a chance to discuss the next steps on the defense supplemental spending bill.

Johnson acknowledges Senate Republicans are growing impatient, but he has pointed out that it took four months for the Senate to pass its bill, which it finally did on Feb. 13.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) addresses reporters following the weekly policy luncheon on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. (Greg Nash)

The House package is expected to establish a loan program to deliver aid to Ukraine, as well as provisions authorizing the seizure of Russian assets held abroad to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Johnson has also floated the idea of including language to reverse President Biden’s moratorium on permitting liquified natural gas export facilities.

Senate sources, however, say they don’t expect the package to include any significant border security policy reforms, despite Johnson’s earlier arguments that any Ukraine assistance needed to be paired with such legislation.

One possible path forward would be for President Biden to agree to take executive actions to better secure the border as part of a deal with the House to advance funding for Ukraine.

Congressional sources say there is communication between the White House and Speaker’s office on how to move forward.

One source said that whatever bill Johnson brings to the floor would have tacit buy-in from the White House.

McConnell warned before the Easter recess that adding new issues to the Ukraine package could delay it substantially.

“What I’ve said repeatedly is we’re running out of time,” he told reporters with exasperation.

“The best way to get Ukraine the help they need is for the House to pass the Senate bill. The problem with changing it … it can take you three days to do the simplest thing here in the Senate. We don’t have the time, so I’m continuing to advocate to the Speaker he put the bill on the floor and let people vote,” he argued.