A December meeting between the speaker and Ukrainian president influenced Johnson’s decision to approve military aid for Ukraine.
When Mike Johnson assumed the speaker’s gavel in October, he was set on making more military aid for Ukraine conditional — pairing it with other items like stronger border security provisions that were highly unlikely to get through the Democratic Senate. | Rogelio V. Solis/APhad been speaker for less than two months when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to him with a stark message: Time is running out.
There is no single reason why Johnson, who had previously insisted that support for Ukraine be tied to conservative border policies, got to yes this time. But the meeting with Zelenskyy gave Johnson more urgency to decide if staking his speakership to send more weapons to Ukraine was worth it, the three people said.
But after the Ukrainian leader mentioned his troops would be nearly out of weapons by the spring, a person in House leadership familiar with Johnson’s thinking said the speaker decided action had to be taken before then. “They needed the ammunition and they needed the hardware so they could actually keep fighting,” said the person, also granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Hodges also exerted direct influence on Johnson. The speaker would hear advice from others in his office that he should not move forward with the assistance, or only back aid for Israel. But Hodges, among other voices, argued that the U.S. had an opportunity to stand up to a growing axis between Russia, China and Iran in a way that was both immediate and cost-effective.
Pro-Kyiv lobbyists also visited Johnson often, including like-minded evangelical Christians from Ukraine. The advocacy group Razom for Ukraine put up billboards in Johnson’s Louisiana district with his favorite Bible verse, Esther 4:14, which concludes, “who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Putin would not get the outcome he wanted: total takeover of Ukraine. But he could find himself in a situation by the end of 2024 where he’d be able to negotiate favorable terms with Zelenskyy, the officials and analysts said. CIA Director Bill Burns publicly repeated that assessment in mid-April.
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