Will Foreign Policy Cost the GOP a Speaker of the House?

An interesting test of foreign policy salience for 2024.

Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash

Last fall I was naively sanguine about Congress eventually authorizing more U.S. aid for Ukraine. I wrote, “most American voters do not seem terribly motivated to oppose Ukraine aid. This matters because most of official Washington — i.e., the Biden White House, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, House Democrats, and even a sizeable chunk of House Republicans — support aiding Ukraine for perfectly cromulent national security reasons.”

Of course, what followed was weeks of chaos in the House of Representatives after Kevin McCarthy was ousted. That was followed by months of dithering by new House Speaker Mike Johnson about Ukraine aid. He initially insisted that an aid bill be linked with increased spending for border security. Then, when the Senate hammered out such a compromise, Donald Trump tweeted negative thoughts and that was that.

Then, last week, Johnson finally pushed his chips to the center of the table and came out in support of aid — which meant, essentially, that the GOP got very little for its bargaining troubles except a six-month delay.

Johnson was forthright about his reasoning for supporting more aid, which apparently included access to better intelligence. Axios’ Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei explained:

It's hard to overstate the importance of Johnson's road-to-Kyiv political conversion. He not only shifted his own position on funding and arming Ukraine, but defied a majority of his party to do it.

Oh, and he risked his speakership to pull it off.

President Biden's national security team, most importantly CIA Director Bill Burns, methodically walked Johnson through the damning intelligence.

The intelligence was so eye-opening to Johnson that he soon begged colleagues to go to the secure government chamber to see it themselves, the N.Y. Times reported.

The result was passage with bipartisan support, but one in which an overwhelming number of Democrats helped Johnson out big time. As VandeHei and Allen noted, “Republicans have a long history of never, ever allowing a vote on something most in the GOP opposed. So jamming this through was all the more stunning. Some of the most powerful GOP committee chairs voted against Johnson on Ukraine.”

That leads us to whether Johnson’s actions will cost him his current job. Over the weekend Politico’s Olivia Beavers and Jordain Carney reported on what MAGA critics of Johnson were thinking:

Johnson had plowed ahead with the votes to send money to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan despite rising conservative anger — passing every part of the foreign aid plan with widespread Democratic help. Some Republicans are openly entertaining the idea of backing the ouster threat led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), but those already backing the effort opted to wait on triggering the vote. Instead, they indicated members should go back home and hear from their constituents.

That could go two ways for Johnson. Tempers could cool as lawmakers return to their districts for a week and focus on their constituents and reelection bids. Or members, particularly in deep-red districts, hear more from an angry base — prompting more members to entertain action against Johnson.

Greene and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, the second Republican to back ousting Johnson, are betting it’s the latter.

This leads to a pretty interesting natural experiment: will GOP constituents get angry and exercise their voice at their members of Congress? Will a foreign policy issue mobilize the base?

Foreign aid has long been an unpopular line item in the budget, particularly for Republicans. And polarization is pretty high, so an aid bill that will inevitably be viewed as a win for Biden will likely rile up the MAGA crowd.

In this case, however, there are a number of reasons to think that there will not be a groundswell of opposition. For one thing, the longer Ukraine went without U.S. aid, the more that polling suggested even Republicans believed that the United States was not doing enough to help the country.

Another reason this might not trigger a groundswell of opposition is that GOP elites are far from unified in their opposition to Johnson’s actions. Elite division can dampen base enthusiasm, and make no mistake, the GOP is divided. In the wake of the aid vote, Republican House members are engaging in some rather spirited infighting, as the Washington Post’s Patrick Svitek and Marianna Sotomayor reported:

“It’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” calling out two GOP colleagues — Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Bob Good (Va.) — who have broken with Johnson and voted against other legislation proposed by the GOP majority….

Most House Republicans have grown weary of colleagues who consistently vote against legislation that must be addressed rather than work to seek compromise within the party. Since eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to oust then-speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), more pragmatic Republicans have become irate at the “no” bloc of the conference and encouraged GOP leadership to punish those members.

Hard-liners argue that as the majority party Republicans should push for ideological purity and take a firm stand in negotiations to exert concessions from a Democratic-led Senate and White House. But in voting against conservative measures they do not believe go far enough, other Republicans say, hard-liners are weakening Johnson’s hand in negotiations because the conference is not united around a set of demands.

Another dampener on MAGA enthusiasm is that Donald Trump ‘s opposition to the aid package has died down over the past week. The Wall Street Journal’s Vivian Salama reports that a minor concession to Trump was all that was needed:¹

Some strategic outreach by Republican senators, a high-profile visit by Johnson and a small but politically significant change to the package helped convince Trump of the case for the Ukraine measure, according to people familiar with the former president’s thinking. That cleared the way for Johnson to move ahead with the bill without sparking the powerful former president’s ire, passing the bill through the House on Saturday….

A key change in the House bill was to make $9.5 billion for economic aid in the form of forgivable loans, not grants, to align with an idea Trump floated months earlier….

A group of senators, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), and Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.), held joint phone calls, first among themselves to strategize, and then with Trump, after he had floated first the idea of making Ukraine aid into a loan.

“We should never give money anymore without the hope of a payback, or without ‘strings’ attached,” Trump posted on social media in February.” The U.S. “should be ‘stupid’ no longer!” he said in the all-caps message.

The lawmakers’ plan, according to people familiar with the outreach, was to expand on the idea of the loan, and make it Trump’s idea, so that he would embrace it. Trump, officials said, was open to the idea—so long as the U.S. is guaranteed something in return. 

This is all happening at the same time that conservative media is taking potshots at the Republican member of Congress trying to unseat Johnson.

In the end, if Republicans do complain to their reps about the Ukraine vote, then it’s a sign that voters are exercised about foreign policy this election cycle. For all the reasons listed above, however, color me skeptical that a groundswell of MAGA support will emerge this week.

1. The Atlantic’s David Frum suggests that Trump capitulated on the issue but the Journal’s reporting seems pretty solid.