House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called himself a “wartime speaker” on Tuesday as he defended himself after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) called for his resignation over a plan to hold separate votes on military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
“We need steady leadership. We need steady hands on the wheel,” Johnson said at a press conference. “Look, I regard myself as a wartime speaker.”
Massie said he would back Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) plan to file a motion to vacate, which would trigger a vote to oust Johnson as speaker. If every Democrat votes against Johnson, only two Republican votes would be needed to oust him.
Several House Democrats signaled they wouldn’t vote against Johnson if the bills he put forward included the total funding in the $95 billion foreign military aid bill that passed the Senate.
The Senate’s $95 billion foreign military aid bill includes $60 billion for the proxy war in Ukraine, $14 billion to support the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and a few billion for Taiwan and other spending in the Asia Pacific region.
Other GOP members have expressed anger over Johnson’s plan to introduce the military aid bills without any changes to border policy, but it’s unclear if they would join Greene and Massie in voting against him.
Johnson is also planning to put forward a fourth bill that could include a TikTok ban and give the federal government the ability to sell off frozen Russian assets to fund aid to Ukraine. The details are unclear, and the text of the bill is expected to be released late Tuesday.
The White House has signaled its support for Johnson’s plan. “It does appear at first blush that the Speaker’s proposal will in fact help us get aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel and needed resources to the Indo-Pacific for a wide range of contingencies there. At first blush it looks like that, we just want to get more details,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
