After months of escalating tensions, the House overwhelmingly passed a $95 billion foreign aid package Saturday, despite a majority of Republicans voting against additional funding for Ukraine.
The three-bill package, which includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel (including $9 billion earmarked for humanitarian aid in Gaza), and $8 billion for U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, was spearheaded by Speaker Mike Johnson, who has faced a revolt from the far-right flank of the GOP over his support for Ukraine.
For the past month, Johnson has been staring down the specter of a motion to vacate his speakership wielded by Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Last week, her promise to push forward with her effort to oust Johnson earned the support of Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie and Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, which, given the GOP’s razor-slim House majority, would be enough to boot Johnson if no Democrats come to his aid.
But Greene appeared to back down on Saturday, at least temporarily, saying she had decided against immediately bringing up the motion. Instead, she said she wanted House Republicans to hear from their voters first. “Mike Johnson betrayed America once again,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “House Republicans and the American people would be stronger without his disloyalty and betrayal of his principles. Now it’s time for my colleagues to go home and hear from their constituents.”
“The pressure is already building,” Massie, one of the most vocal opponents of Ukraine aid in the House, told Politico Saturday. “It’s going to be inevitable, especially now that [Johnson has] chosen his path with the Democrats. Like once you go there, it’s hard to go back.”
After the vote, Johnson addressed the threat from his far-right flank, telling reporters he doesn’t “walk around this building being worried about a motion to vacate. I have to do my job.” The House Speaker added: “I’ve done here what I believe to be the right thing to allow the House to work its will.”
As the vote on Ukraine aid appeared set to pass, several Democrats waved small Ukrainian flags, prompting boos from some Republicans opposed to the measure.
In a statement, President Joe Biden praised both parties for coming “together to answer history’s call passing urgently-needed national security legislation that I have fought for months to secure.” He urged the Senate, which passed a similar measure in February, to “quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to X immediately after the bill’s passage to “personally thank Speaker Mike Johnson and all American hearts who believe, as we do in Ukraine, that Russian evil must not be winning.” On Sunday, speaking on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” the embattled leader said the U.S. support “will really strengthen the armed forces, I pray, and we will have a chance at victory if Ukraine really gets the weapons system, which we need so much, which thousands of soldiers need so much.”