The Speaker’s sudden willingness to bring foreign-aid bills to the House floor risks his Speakership—and Trump’s wrath. By Susan B. Glasser ![Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaking to the press. There is a blue and red treatment overlay on top of the image.]()
It turns out that,eight years into the Trump takeover of the Republican Party, there are still a few surprises left. On Wednesday morning, Mike Johnson, the accidental Speaker of the House, finally made the choice that he had spent months evading and released the text of long-stalled legislation to send over sixty billion dollars in assistance to Ukraine, among other national-security priorities. He promised a vote this weekend. The threat was real that, if he proceeded, a small faction of the most extreme Trumpists in the House—a loudly pro-Russia lot—would soon force him out of the post that he would not have got in the first place without Trump’s support. And yet, by Wednesday afternoon, there was Johnson, speaking to the cameras in the Capitol’s ornate Statuary Hall. His words were unexpectedly passionate, his delivery crisp. Invoking this “critical” moment in the world, Johnson said, “I can make a selfish decision”—namely, keeping his job by not moving forward on the aid for Ukraine and, once again, caving to the sort of angry nihilists who have bullied the past three Republican Speakers out of the House. “But I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing.” He talked about why aid for Ukraine was “critically important,” adding, “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.” This was yet another heresy for many Republicans, who, following Trump, have spent years tearing down the truthfulness and reliability of America’s intelligence agencies. | 
