Located in West Virginia’s White Sulphur Springs… In light of the GOP’s ongoing opposition to any additional aid, Speaker Mike Johnson told AWN that he anticipates receiving Democratic support in order to approve a future bill providing assistance to Ukraine.
Aid to Israel and Ukraine might be presented as a single package or possibly two, according to an interview Johnson gave Thursday at the House Republican retreat. Using the House’s suspension schedule, which he has frequently utilised recently to overcome opposition from within his own party, he predicted that it will happen.
It is my suspicion that foreign assistance will need to be suspended, and I think it is a stand-alone, as Johnson put it.
The Republican from Louisiana made it plain that he does not see a way to secure the foreign aid funding as part of a bigger spending package that would allow the government to remain open.
Johnson would require a significant number of Democratic votes to adopt legislation on the House floor, as the suspension schedule requires a two-thirds majority. Throughout his tenure as speaker, he has adopted that stance on numerous controversial legislation.
In the interview, he went on to say that the idea of dividing funding to Israel and Ukraine into two different legislation was “under consideration.”
After weeks of wrangling in Congress, the speaker finally made his position known on his plans for a foreign aid package worth tens of billions of dollars. This comes after the Senate adopted its own bipartisan proposal last month. Despite considerable opposition within his own party to providing additional financing to Kyiv for its operations against Russia, his remarks constitute the most definitive indication that Johnson intends to bring the issue of Ukraine aid to a vote.