It’s Johnson’s decision time on Ukraine

It’s decision time for Johnson on Ukraine

Congress is back this week (today for the Senate and tomorrow for the House) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces perhaps the most challenging stretch of his short speakership. 

Yes, we’ve said this before, but the dynamics are getting even more dire.

Hanging over Johnson’s head is a motion to vacate filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after he put a funding bill on the floor last month that had been negotiated with Democrats and passed with more votes from them than from Republicans.

Greene told our colleague Marianna Sotomayor that Johnson “has abandoned us and become the speaker for the Democrats.” 

Johnson faces two major issues over the next two weeks that have deeply divided his conference and could further threaten his job: Ukraine funding and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization. 

He is facing decision time on how to handle a funding package for Ukraine, Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza. 

He has not telegraphed to the Republican conference or his leadership team what his plan is, but he is currently in discussions with the White House, trying to find a package palatable for the conference. He has floated as a trial balloon: 

• Providing Ukraine with a loan instead of direct aid, which former president Donald Trump has floated. (The first funding package for Ukraine gave President Biden authority to quickly move lease agreements with Ukraine.)
• Mandating that Russian-seized assets would be given to Ukraine. 
• Reversing Biden’s moratorium on liquid natural gas exports.

While seizing Russian assets is not controversial and has Democratic support, lend-lease is also palatable. But there’s no way Biden would allow a measure reversing his liquid natural gas exports moratorium to be added. 

What he has not signaled is that border security will be part of the measure, which had been a demand of his conference in exchange for Ukraine funding. 

• “In a statement, Johnson reiterated his commitment to ‘meaningful policy’ addressing the southern border as part of the president’s supplemental funding request and Republicans hope the speaker forcefully uses his leverage to bring Democrats to the negotiating table,” Marianna writes. 

The White House continues to signal that it backs the $95.3 billion aid package the Senate overwhelmingly passed 70-29 in February. 

• “We need the Senate bill to pass,” a White House official said. “Any amendments whatsoever to it risk further delay. We do not support any amendments to the Senate-passed bill.”

House Democratic leadership agrees that the best way to move forward is to pass the Senate bill, which is becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day.

While we’re focusing mostly on Republicans, Democrats also have a major role to play. Whatever Johnson passes, he’ll need a significant number of them. But with each day, a potential coalition becomes more tenuous. 

A growing number of Democrats, including 39 who signed a letter last week, are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with giving Israel offensive weapons to use in Gaza, especially after an Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers. 

Because the Senate tied military aid for Israel and humanitarian assistance for Gaza together with Ukraine aid, Democratic leadership argues the easiest way to find a coalition to pass the entire package. 

• “This would have been a whole lot easier in February,” said a senior Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics. Johnson has been putting off moving forward with Ukraine aid amid discontent with his conference, deadlines to fund the government and threats to his job. 
• “He’s gotten himself down to a Catch-22,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the largest faction of conservatives, the Republican Study Committee,” told Marianna.

After House GOP divisions over surveillance repeatedly stymied attempts to pass a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a post-9/11 law that gives intelligence agencies more tools, Johnson is moving forward this week ahead of an April 19 deadline. 

He chose to advance a version of the bill preferred by national security hawks, the intelligence apparatus and the White House. But in an attempt to appease members of the Freedom Caucus, Johnson said he’d allow amendment votes to require warrants when an American is caught up in government surveillance of foreigners. 

• “If he passes that $60 billion to Ukraine, and then follows up with FISA reauthorization, you’re going to see a lot more Republicans than just me coming out saying his speakership is over with,” Greene told Marianna. 

Reality check: While discontent about Johnson’s leadership is widespread based on consistent and repeated conversations we have with House Republicans, few people want to go through another speaker fight and no one has stepped forward saying they’d want the job. 

On Wednesday, House impeachment managers will send articles to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate. 

That same day, Mayorkas will testify before two congressional committees, including the Senate Appropriations Committee, about the fiscal year 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security (a sign of how seriously — or not — the Senate is taking his impeachment).

Then, on Thursday, the Senate is expected to vote to dismiss the trial.

Vote Vets questions Sheehy’s latest story on gunshot wound

The liberal-leaning veterans group Vote Vets is out with a new digital ad calling into question Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s latest story about how a bullet became lodged in his arm. Sheehy is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the deep-red state. 

The ad, provided to The Early, comes after our colleague Liz Goodwin reported this weekend that Sheehy was shot when his gun dislodged when he dropped it when visiting Glacier National Park with his family, according to a National Park Service officer who attended to Sheehy and a record of the episode filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. 

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, has said and written in his book that the bullet was from when he was deployed in Afghanistan. 

Sheehy told Goodwin in an interview that his injury in the park was not a gunshot wound but a hiking accident. He told Liz he lied to the law enforcement officer after the park incident because he didn’t want to tell the truth about the being shot in Afghanistan because he didn’t want an investigation to open into him and his platoonmate. He never reported a gun shot injury to his supervisors in Afghanistan. 

“I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did,” Sheehy told Liz, adding that the gun never went off in the national park. 

“C’mon Tim. It’s another part of this millionaire developer’s story that just doesn’t add up,” the narrator in the ad says.

The ad doesn’t yet have money behind it, but it is an attempt to define Sheehy as someone who can’t be trusted in a race that could determine which party controls the Senate next year. 

“It’s time he releases his military records and medical records to put this issue to bed,” said Jon Soltz, chairman of Vote Vets. “Montanans might not be able to trust Sheehy, but they can trust our military and medical professionals for the truth.”

How easy will it be to vote this year? It depends where you live

Voting will be easier in some swing states in November than it was four years ago — but it’s likely to be harder in others.

Consider the changes in two crucial states:

• In Michigan, voting will be easier. “There will be nine days of early voting,” our colleague Patrick Marley reports. “All mail ballots will have prepaid return postage. And every community will have at least one drop box for absentee ballots because of a measure adopted by voters with the support of the state’s top Democrats.
• In North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor but where Republicans enjoy a veto-proof legislative majority, it will be harder. “For the first time in a presidential election, voters there will have to show an ID,” Patrick writes. “More votes are expected to be thrown out because of new absentee ballot return deadlines. And courts will soon decide whether to allow a law to go into effect that would reshape the state’s elections boards and could result in fewer early-voting sites.”

The changes come after Trump “baselessly accused Democrats of using the loosened rules to rig the 2020 vote, turning election policy into the object of hyperpolarized disagreement,” Patrick writes.

• “Particularly in swing states, Republicans have generally pushed for tighter laws, such as voter ID requirements and limits on mail-in voting, in the name of election integrity.”
• “Democrats have advocated eliminating barriers that could suppress voter participation, including by making rules for registering to vote and casting ballots more flexible.”

Today Biden is heading to Madison, Wis., where he’ll discuss his new plan for canceling student loan debt.

The announcement comes more than nine months after the Supreme Court struck down the $400 billion student loan forgiveness program that Biden unveiled in 2022.

The new plan would cancel student loan interest for millions of borrowers and automatically cancel debt for borrowers eligible for some student loan forgiveness programs that currently require applications, among other measures, according to a White House official. Biden’s announcement follows other, more limited steps he’s taken to address student debt following the Supreme Court defeat.

Vice President Harris is heading to Philadelphia, second gentleman Doug Emhoff is going to Phoenix and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is heading to New York to talk up the new plan.

Biden will stop in Chicago for a fundraiser this evening before heading back to Washington.

The rest of Biden’s week will be dominated by hosting Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and his wife, Kishida Yuko, who arrive on Tuesday. Biden will meet with Kishida on Wednesday and hold a joint news conference with him ahead of Wednesday night’s state dinner. It’s only the fifth state dinner of Biden’s presidency.

Biden and Harris will meet on Thursday with Kishida and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines.

We’re watching what Trump says on abortion this morning after he promised last night to make a statement on it. His position on the issue has been relatively ambiguous.

He suggested last month that he was open to a 15-week ban but also said abortion “shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue.” And he wrote last night on his social media platform, Truth Social, that “like Ronald Reagan before me, I, and most other Republicans, believe in EXCEPTIONS for Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother” but didn’t offer further details.

Must-reads from The Post:

• Trump, at fundraiser, says he wants immigrants from ‘nice’ countries. By the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman and Michael Gold.
• The House Dems who keep using TikTok while voting against it. By Politico’s Rebecca Kern.

We find it hard to believe no one was going to Bill Clinton’s presidential library.

Thanks for reading. You can also follow us on X: @LACaldwellDC and @theodoricmeyer.