The new House speaker is politicizing aid to please right-wingers. That’s bad for Israel and the U.S.
House Speaker Mike Johnson calls on a reporter during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Alongside Johnson are, from left, Majority Whip Tom Emmer , Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Majority Leader Steve Scalise . to responding to Israel’s urgent need for aid. But if that were true, he wouldn’t be wasting time passing funding bills designed to appease his right flank but that won’t become law. The games he is playing are causing dangerous delays of vital U.S.
As a sop to the MAGA wing of his party, Johnson’s bill also further politicizes the Israel issue at the worst possible time. It contains a policy rider that would defund IRS enforcement, a nonstarter for the White House and the Senate. This policy change wouldThe House GOP approach “is really dangerous in multiple ways both for Israel and for Ukraine,” a senior administration official told me. There’s a sense in parts of the Republican Party that Israel aid is more urgent than Ukraine aid.
“He’s not where I’m at, but he’s by no means an isolationist,” Graham told me. “And I think he’s got a really balanced view of the politics of the moment and needs of the future.”Johnson told the senators he wanted the administration to answer his list of questions about the war in Ukraine. Administration officials said they are working on Johnson’s questions. House GOP aides told me that Johnson might be looking for cover for some of his members to eventually vote for Ukraine aid.
Conservatives point out that Democrats on the far left would then likely use the same tactic, conditioning future Israel aid to advance their own partisan priorities. Most pro-Israel groups view preserving the bipartisan nature of aid to Israel as crucial.“The pro-Israel community will win this fight over military aid to Israel,” Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me.
There’s a sense that the administration doesn’t truly understand how much the GOP has changed on foreign policy. For example, Rep. Thomas Massie , a longtimeJohnson faces the same basic challenge as did his predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy : He must placate the MAGA crowd while presenting himself to everyone else as a serious person. McCarthy’s strategy was to tell each side what it wanted to hear, eventually sacrificing his credibility with both. Johnson seems headed down a similar path.
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