Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney suggested last weekend that Speaker Mike Johnson should be willing to risk his speakership to ensure that the additional Ukraine funding approved by the Senate is passed in the House, Politico reported.
The Senate passed a $95 billion supplemental package on February 13, with 22 Senate Republicans joining 46 Democrats in approving an additional $60 billion in funding for Ukraine, as well as funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific region.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, however, was under intense pressure from some House Republicans as well as Donald Trump, not to bring the Senate bill to a vote before the House adjourned for a 2-week recess.
Before the Senate vote, Johnson said without strong funding to secure the southern border, the House would not take up the Senate bill but would instead pursue funding packages of its own.
In a February 18 interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cheney said Speaker Johnson should call the House back from recess to take up the Senate bill.
Host Jake Tapper said the speaker could face heavy pushback from House Republicans if he did as Cheney said, including the possibility that Republicans could file a motion to vacate the chair, the same measure used to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy faced last fall.
However, Cheney insisted that the risk of losing his speakership would be worth it, saying Johnson should realize that making sure “freedom survives” was more important than the speakership. She said the speaker should care more about making sure that the United States continued playing “its leadership role in the world.”
The former Republican conference chair told Jake Tapper that Speaker Johnson should resist outside pressure, arguing that Johnson would have to explain to future generations whether he chose to do what was right to aid “the cause of freedom” in Ukraine or if he would do the cowardly thing by siding with Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.