The Republican House was all set to devote a week of floor time to a bunch of pointless messaging bills like the “Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, “Liberty in Laundry Act,” and “Refrigerator Freedom Act.” Following Iran’s missile attack on Israel over the weekend, though, leadership decided that liberating our refrigerators has to take a back seat to pretending to do something meaningful.
On Saturday, Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced that “the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable.” So far, that means a flurry of messaging bills including non-binding resolutions like “Condemning Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel.” In other words, bills that sound serious but don’t actually do anything.
Doing something, for both Israel and Ukraine, is all up to House Speaker Mike Johnson. The aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan has been pending in the House since the Senate passed it two months ago. All Johnson needs to do is put it on the floor for a vote. That’s what a bipartisan group of 90 lawmakers asked him to do in a letter sent on Sunday.
“Time is of the essence, and we must ensure critical aid is delivered to Israel and our other democratic allies facing threats from our adversaries around the world,” the members wrote, urging Johnson to bring the Senate’s aid package—which they noted passed with 70 bipartisan votes—to the floor on Monday.
“[W]e can send it to the President's desk for signature Monday night,” they wrote.
Some senior GOP lawmakers made high-profile pitches for the aid package on the Sunday shows.
said “We have to get this done. I would implore—what I need to educate my colleagues [on] is they’re all tied together,” House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul of Texas said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Addressing the combined threats posed by Iran, Russia, and China, he said, “I have a commitment it will come to the floor, my preference is this week.”
House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner of Ohio argued on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it had to be done, saying the House would pass the combined aid bill this week with “overwhelming support,” insisting that the speaker supports such aid.
“It’s part of the national security supplemental and he has made it clear that he sees that the path is for that to come to the House for this week,” Turner added.
That could be wishful thinking on Turner’s part, or it could be expectation setting ahead of the meeting Johnson is holding with the GOP conference Monday evening to discuss how to move forward with the aid funding.
Johnson, however, is still being controlled by Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of his conference. While he got a sort of endorsement from Trump in his pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago last Friday, Trump made sure that Johnson knows who is still calling the shots on Ukraine aid.
“We’re looking at it right now, and they’re talking about it, and we’re thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift,” Trump said after the two met.
It’s all down to how much pressure Johnson is going to feel from his key committee chairs along with House Democrats, the Senate, and the White House to counteract Trump, and timing is a big part of that. Congress is scheduled to be out again for a full week next week, and anything Johnson does that isn’t the Senate bill will have to go through the Senate again.
Published with permission of Daily Kos
Even ridiculed by Fox News.
