They don’t REALLY want the guy….
But in order to get Ukraine aid sooner vs later ?
They need the bill to come up for vote against the wishes of Donald Trump and Georgia GOP Rep. Greene….
Aides to President Joe Biden have been privately working behind the scenes to ensure House Speaker Mike Johnson can put a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine up for a vote — and survive it politically.
The White House has maintained contact with Johnson’s office about Ukraine aid throughout Congress’s two-week recess, according to two administration officials. And while the president has publicly pressured House Republicans to pass the Ukraine aid package, he and his team have held off on aggressively attacking the speaker over the drawn-out process for getting it passed. Instead, they’ve sought to give Johnson breathing room as he leads a fractious GOP caucus with an ever-shrinking majority.
For all their frustration with the painstakingly slow pace in the House, administration officials are privately hopeful their approach could result in Congress starting to move on an aid package later this month.
What that final package looks like remains unclear. The White House provided little official pushback following Johnson’s interview Sunday night on Fox News Channel, when he floated the ideas of making some of the Ukraine aid a loan or repurposing some $300 billion in seized Russian assets. Democratic officials who have talked with the administration say that the White House has been deliberately private about whether it views either idea as realistic or likely to end up in a final deal.
Ultimately, the focus continues to be on convincing Johnson of the urgency of getting aid to Ukraine.
The months-long slog over Ukraine funding underscores a larger difficulty in getting major legislation enacted in a presidential year and within a divided government. While the Biden administration’s overarching legislative strategy has long been to let Congress work its will, Johnson and the tiny Republican majority present challenges….
Note…
House Speaker Johnson could lose his Speakership to Democrat Hakken Jeffries if a few more Republicans bil out of the House BEFORE November….
Manu Raju
@mkraju
New — Speaker Mike Johnson is now responding to MTG, telling us in a statement: “I respect Marjorie. She will always have an open door to the Speaker’s office. We do have honest differences on strategy sometimes but share the same conservative beliefs.
“In spite of our Republican majority of just a single seat in just one chamber of Congress, we are still fighting this administration every day to make policy changes. A shutdown would not serve our party or assist us in our mission of saving the republic by growing our majority, nor will another motion to vacate.
“As I have always said, national security starts at our southern border. Any funding of the President’s supplemental request should be premised on meaningful policy to help the American people and finally address the invasion at our southern border.”
The two are expected to speak tomorrow