
Dysfunctional Congress Returns
Author: Greg Valliere
April 8, 2024
IT WAS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE — Congress has been out of town for the past two weeks, but that’s about to end, as a bitter brawl resumes this week over aid to Ukraine.
HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON doesn’t have the votes for a Ukraine bill, so he will have to offer sweeteners to both Republicans and Democrats. He has a decent chance, but not a great chance, of succeeding.
HANGING OVER THIS DEBATE are two very diverse complications:
1. Support has cooled in Congress for aid to Israel, which is part of the Ukraine bill. If the Israelis invade Rafah in the next few days, lawmakers may strip out the Israeli aid. As we wrote on Friday, the estrangement between Israel and Washington has been shocking, with a growing risk that U.S. aid will stall in Congress.
2. Johnson is on increasingly thin ice. He probably has enough votes from Democrats to pass Ukraine aid, which would infuriate rebel Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is threatening to oust Johnson as House Speaker if he sends an aid package to the House floor. She only needs a vote or two to boot him.
JOHNSON WILL PUSH HARD THIS WEEK for add-ons to the Senate-passed bill. He will insist that the aid should be in the form of loans, and he will seek to reverse President Biden’s ban on further liquefied natural gas exports. He also may seek to give frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.
JOHNSON HAS A WEAK HAND — a stunning 21 House Republicans have announced their retirements, some immediately, and scores of Republicans are echoing Russian sound bites, according to GOP committee chairmen. Dysfunction is back, and the Ukraine bill is on thin ice.
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