Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday encountered stiff resistance from Republicans as he embarked on a complicated and politically perilous strategy to push legislation through the House to send aid to Israel and Ukraine — all while beating back a threat to his own job.
Mr. Johnson, who has agonized for months over whether and how to advance aid to Ukraine that many in his party bitterly oppose, has settled on a multipart plan that will require everything to go right for him this week to prevail.
It aims to bring together a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions and allow different factions in the House to register their opposition to pieces of the aid package without sinking the entire thing. And it would ultimately mean cobbling together just enough support from Democrats and mainstream Republicans to pass the legislation amid resistance from hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid for Israel.
Of course he’s going to find stiff resistance from the party Putin has so many tendrils in. I’m just surprised he’s trying himself.