The praise heaped on President Mike Johnson in recent days for finally defying his party’s right wing and allowing a Ukraine aid bill to pass the House might have seemed a bit excessive.
After all, a president’s entire job is to move the bill through the House, and like Saturday’s vote to pass the bill As the Ukrainian measure demonstrated, the Ukrainian measure enjoyed overwhelming support. But Mr Johnson’s feat was not so different from that of another struggling Republican who faced a difficult choice under immense pressure from far-right Republicans and was hailed as a hero for for simply doing his job: former Vice President Mike Pence.
When Mr. Pence refused former President Donald J. Trump’s demands to overturn the results of the 2020 election as he presided over Congress’ counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021 – even as a crowd angry with baseball bats and pepper spray invaded the Capitol. and chanted “hang Mike Pence” – the normally mundane act of carrying out the tasks outlined in a vice president’s job description was hailed as courageous.
Mr. Pence and now Mr. Johnson represent the most prominent examples of a harsh political reality: in today’s Republican Party, encompassed by Mr. Trump, taking the path of maintaining norms and consensus can mean the end of your political career. .
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Pence, both mild-mannered and extremely conservative evangelical Christians who have made their faith central to their politics, occupy a similar space in their party. They both went through contortions to accommodate Mr. Trump and the forces he unleashed within their party, who in turn ultimately came after them. Mr. Pence spent four years dutifully serving the former president and defending his every word and action. Mr. Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, played a leading role in trying to overturn the election results on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
But at two critical junctures, facing intense, sometimes violent, pressure from their party, they both chose a more difficult path.
Mr Johnson faces a growing movement on his right flank to oust him from his post. Even after Mr. Johnson stood alongside Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago and appeared to have his support, the former president’s top surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and one of the top Vice presidential contenders Sen. JD Vance of Ohio criticized him for his decision to move forward with the security package.
“He hasn’t been met yet, and Mike Johnson has to go like Kevin McCarthy,” Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump adviser and host of the influential right-wing podcast War Room, said Friday at a conservative retreat in Florida, referring to Mr. Johnson’s predecessor as speaker.
Because of his difficult break with Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence’s short-lived presidential campaign struggled to raise money and never gained ground in polls dominated from the start by the former president.
On social networks This week, Mr. Pence urged Democrats and Republicans to “rally around President Johnson.” Unsurprisingly, his post was besieged by commentators calling the two Republicans “traitors”; one said it was an example of “Judas supporting another Judas.”
Mr. Pence has offered private encouragement to Mr. Johnson in recent weeks as he faces growing discontent from the far right.
“I think they are both courageous,” said Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former chief of staff, saying their Christian faith helps ground both men in difficult times.
Sarah Longwell, a prominent anti-Trump Republican political strategist, said it was remarkable that Republicans in Washington were “doing the right thing, and they deserve credit for standing up to the forces of their own party.” She added that “you still need a strong apparatus to encourage people to do the right thing and maintain those expectations.”
On Saturday morning in the House, some members attempted to do just that. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, praised Mr. Johnson’s “courage” for moving forward, even “in the face of formidable obstacles.” He called the simple decision to bring a security package before the House with broad bipartisan support “a testament to his character.” On Friday, a group of about 70 former members of Congress, foreign affairs experts and other advocates for aid to Ukraine sent a letter to Mr. Johnson in support of his efforts.
“We are grateful for your courageous leadership,” wrote the group, led by the Ukraine Freedom Project. “Your call for America to reemerge as the country that defends freedom and confronts tyranny is a wake-up call for our times. »
Even Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, praised Mr. Johnson minutes after the bill passed. “I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties and personally to President Mike Johnson for this decision that keeps history on track,” he wrote on social media.
Not everyone was eager to pile on the kudos.
“I’m so happy that Republicans are finally realizing the seriousness of the situation and the urgency with which we must act,” Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said Friday as the House was preparing to vote. to pave the way for the bill. “But here you don’t get any reward for your damn work.”
At a news conference later in the day, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, resisted giving any credit to Mr. Johnson, even though he was repeatedly pressed to ‘evaluate the speaker’s performance and weigh in on whether Democrats would help save his presidency.
“While I would like to think that the American people care about what I have to say about the job performance of one of my colleagues, I do not believe that is the case,” Mr. Jeffries said. “What matters to the American people right now is meeting their needs in a very dangerous world where they stand with our Democratic allies. This will be the ultimate test by which Speaker Johnson, myself, and all of our colleagues in the House on both sides will be judged. On the House floor Saturday, he said that along with Democrats and President Biden, “traditional conservatives led by President Mike Johnson have risen to the occasion.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former senior aide to the Trump administration, was lukewarm at best in her praise of Mr. Johnson, who she said had hesitated for months before moving forward. ‘before with aid to Ukraine, although it was clear that there was a wide range of aid to Ukraine. consensus that aid was essential.
“It’s remarkable that this is considered a courageous or heroic step – simply bringing a bill to the House for a vote that has bipartisan support,” she said. “During the period that Johnson was hesitant about whether to allow a vote on this issue, Ukraine lost ground and Ukrainians were killed by the Russians.”
Last week, Mr Johnson told reporters at the Capitol that “history judges us for what we do”, adding: “I could make a selfish decision and do something different, but I am doing here what I believe it to be the right decision. thing.”
Even after his impassioned comments, he hesitated before releasing the text of the bills, leading Democrats to fear that his indecision and desire to appeal to the far right could prevail again.
On Saturday, some of them shrugged their shoulders at Mr. Johnson’s plight, arguing that it was the brutal reality of what he signed up for when he threw himself into the ring for the thankless job as president of the Republican Party.
“He didn’t volunteer for an easy job,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland. “And he knew exactly what context he was going into.”
Carl Hulse reports contributed.
