Republican Rep. Warren Davidson has a warning for Speaker Mike Johnson: put a sprawling national security package on the House floor and you’re risking your job.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., sent Johnson off to a two-week Easter break with a motion to vacate that could trigger a vote to oust him from the speakership at any time she makes it privileged.
With a one-vote Republican majority, Johnson can hardly lose any support if he wants to continue to lead the conference, unless Democrats come to the rescue.
‘Her statement for quite a long time now is don’t bring a giant supplemental bill to fund Ukraine, or I will move to vacate,’ Davidson told DailyMail.com.
‘I believe she will, and I think if the speaker brings some giant supplemental bill to fund a whole bunch of other stuff and not defend America, the speaker will have a lot of problems,’ the Foreign Affairs Committee member and Ohio Republican added.
‘I think there’ll be people that will join [the motion to vacate] from the Republican conference, and probably more than eight.’
Greene said she was prompted to kick off the effort by frustrations over 2024 spending bills. But she’s long warned Johnson against bringing further Ukraine aid to the House floor.
Republican Rep. Warren Davidson has a warning for Speaker Mike Johnson : put a sprawling national security package on the House floor, and you’ll endanger your job
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene , R-Ga., sent Johnson off to a two-week Easter break with a motion to vacate that could trigger a vote to oust him from the speakership at any time she makes it privileged
Eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October.
Johnson is now wrestling with how to approach aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that conservative hardliners say the U.S. can’t afford.
The White House has requested, and the Senate has already passed, a supplemental with $60 billion for the nation that has been fighting off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion for over two years now.
Davidson is pushing for votes on ‘single subject’ foreign aid bills – where members can decide to which nations they support sending more resources.
He acknowledged the pressure Johnson is facing to put aid on the floor – despite fiery right wing opposition.
‘There are ways that he could do it that probably cause a lot of problems for the conference and for the rest of the agenda and probably for his path as speaker, but you know, it’s clear that a lot of people want that [aid] vote,’ Davidson said.
‘Frankly, they’re probably a lot of people that have won American troops on the ground in Ukraine.’
In a new statement on Thursday Johnson suggested he would attach border provisions to any foreign aid package.
‘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 House is expected to take up a supplemental funding package with foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific in the weeks following the Easter recess.
But the details of the package remain unclear. It’s expected to include some provisions of H.R. 2, the House’s Republican border package.
Some policy makers have been pushing for Russian assets to be seized, rather than just frozen, and repurposed for Ukraine under the REPO Act. But the process would be difficult and has essentially never been done before.
The U.S., European Union, G-7 and have frozen about $280 billion in Russian Central Bank assets, largely in the form of securities and cash. Sanctions on Russian nationals have frozen another $58 billion in assets, according to the U.S. Treasury.
The U.S., UK and Canada are all proponents of seizing the assets. But France, Germany and the European Central Bank have expressed concerns about potential Russian retaliation and precedent it would set for international law.
In this photo taken from video and released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, April 4, 2024, a Russian tank fires in an undisclosed location in Ukraine
Others have suggested the Ukraine aid will likely include a Lend-Lease provision. Providing defense materials under the Lend-Lease Act means that they are meant to be given back if they are not destroyed in the war. Funds could also be loaned to Ukraine with the promise that they would be paid back in the long term.
Meanwhile Johnson has previously suggested attaching a lift of the ban on liquified natural gas exports after Biden said in January he would pause application approvals to analyze economic and environmental impact. It’s not clear if the White House would agree to that.
Johnson would likely need significant Democratic support to pass the legislation as many of his Republicans remain staunchly against any further Ukraine funding.
Democrats largely support funding Ukraine’s war against Russia but some progressives could turn their nose up at a package that includes money for Israel, who they believe has not had enough care with Palestinian civilian lives in its mission to eradicate Hamas. The recent killing of an American aid worker could further entrench their opposition.
Greene launched her bid to potentially oust the speaker after a $1.2 trillion bill that funded six agencies of government. She did not make the resolution ‘privileged,’ meaning it will loom over Johnson’s head and she has the ability to call it for a quick vote at any moment.
She said she is no closer to withdrawing her motion to vacate, deeming Johnson a ‘Democrat speaker’ who doesn’t spend any time listening to his Republican conference.
‘He cannot be Speaker of the House,’ she said. ‘He just can’t be, I won’t vote for him. Many other Republican members are saying the same thing. He’s not our speaker. He’s the Democrat speaker.’