Some conservatives are starting to get grumpy when it comes to government funding and Ukraine
www.independent.co.uk
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Joe Biden along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to discuss a proposed bill to provide security spending for Israel and Ukraine, among other aspects of national security.
To recap, the president and Democrats have bent as much as they could to pass a supplemental spending bill. But as
The Independent reported early last year, Republicans were always
going to oppose providing more aid to Ukraine. As a result, Republicans have demanded that any spending to support Ukraine be tied to provisions restricting immigration, which they have billed as “border security.”
But now, Mr Johnson is facing criticism from his fellow House Republicans, and the negotiations with the president and fellow congressional leaders could threaten his speakership.
House Republicans unanimously picked Mr Johnson after Rep Matt Gaetz led an effort to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker and Republicans cycled through multiple nominees. But Mr Johnson, a political newcomer only elected in 2016, did not have much experience as a congressional leader.
Most Republicans
gave him a mulligan when he needed to pass a stopgap spending bill to prevent a government shutdown late last year, blaming Mr McCarthy for not keeping the House on schedule to pass 12 individual spending bills.
Ukraine is different though. Much of the House Republican conference viscerally hates supporting Ukraine. Restrictions to immigration are the only type of sugar that would allow them to swallow the medicine of Ukraine spending. Furthermore, most House Republicans have shown an aversion to supporting a potential Ukraine-immigration deal that a bipartisan group of senators is brokering, despite the fact there is no final agreement.
Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing conspiracist from Georgia, told The Independent that she would file a motion to vacate against Mr Johnson if any spending went to Ukraine.
“The war’s basically lost,” Ms Greene said, saying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for peace talks. “It would be like continuing murdering a bunch of people at this point.”
Rep Eli Crane of Arizona – one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove Mr McCarthy – for his part said he worried that Mr Johnson would cave to the Democrats.
“We're gonna I think we're gonna continue to spend way too much money that we don't even have,” he said. “In return, we're not going to get a secure southern border.”
Of course,
this anger from conservatives is incredibly self-serving and only seeks to increase their own brands since it gives conservative voters grandiose expectations that somehow, Mr Johnson could somehow get a staunchly conservative wishlist bill on immigration when Republicans only have one half of one chamber of Congress while Democrats control the Senate and the White House.
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Republicans like MTG are pure ineptitude lmao
It's been, what, 3 months? If that?