Speaker Mike Johnson broke his pledge to require the US-Mexico border be secured before passing foreign aid for Ukraine on Thursday the 18th through Saturday the 20th, helping get a massive foreign aid bill passed. Nothing was provided for border patrol in America or other new, border defense initiatives of the sort Speaker Johnson promised that he would demand before passing Ukraine aid. After that, Sen. Rand Paul said that Speaker Johnson is now the “Uniparty” Speaker of the House, not the GOP Speaker.
As background, in December of 2023, Speaker Johnson pledged, “I made this very clear. Again from the very beginning when I was handed the gavel, we needed clarity on what we’re doing in Ukraine, and how we’ll have proper oversight of the spending of precious taxpayer dollars and American citizens.”
At the time, Speaker Johnson also said, “And we needed a transformative change at the border. Thus far, we’ve gotten neither. The Senate has been MIA on this. The House passed H.R. 2, six months ago, more than six months ago. It’s been sitting and collecting dust on Chuck Schumer’s desk. I have told him personally, I’ve told the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, that these are our conditions because these are the conditions of the American people. And we are resolute on that. It is not the House’s issue right now. The issue is with the White House and the Senate, and I implore them to do their job because the time is urgent. And we do want to do the right thing here with that,”
That, however, was thrown out the window with the recent foreign aid bill, which, among other things, includes millions of dollars for Ukrainian border patrol while America’s border lies relatively open. Thus, Sen. Paul declared in a post on X on Friday, the 19th of April, that Speaker Johnson betrayed conservatives by relying on Democrats to usher the bill through the House, where it was passed with more Democrats than Republicans on Saturday.
In his post about Speaker Johnson, Sen. Paul wrote, “It’s official: @SpeakerJohnson is no longer the GOP Speaker of the House, but Speaker for the Uniparty’s $1.5T deficit, warrantless spying on Americans, and a foreign aid bill with more deficit spending than Schumer’s budget buster.”
Defending breaking his pledge, Speaker Johnson said that without the massive foreign aid bill, Russia, China, and Iran would pose “a global threat to our prosperity and our security. Their advance threatens the free world, and it demands American leadership. [If] we turn our backs right now, the consequences could be devastating.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, bashing Speaker Johnson on X for the foreign aid bill, wrote, “Mike Johnson’s House of Representatives so proud to work for Ukraine. Not the American people!!! It’s despicable!” She also posted a video of members of the House of Representatives waving Ukraine flags after the vote, something that angered many conservatives, who argued that only American flags should be flown in the Capitol. Watch that here:
"*" indicates required fields