OPINION:
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House Speaker Mike Johnson has the power to set a floor vote for legislation to help defend our allies in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan: a $96 billion aid package already passed by the Senate, and a new $66 billion proposal from GOP Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Don Bacon.
The money requested for Ukraine in the Senate bill amounts to only 6.8% of this fiscal year’s defense budget, according to figures published in a Senate Armed Services Committee report. The Fitzpatrick-Bacon proposal would cost taxpayers even less.
According to a recent Washington Times report, Mr. Bacon and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul believe “a foreign aid bill could be put on the floor, but the speaker still has not made any assurances to any group.”
Meanwhile, several months after Israel was attacked and Ukraine aid was suspended in Congress, Jerusalem continues to face threats from Iran and its proxies. At the same time, Ukraine struggles to expel Russian invaders. Israel and Taiwan need to replenish their air defenses, and Ukraine’s brave soldiers need ammunition to stop the enemy — an enemy that has already raped their wives and daughters in the presence of their families, kidnapped 700,000 Ukrainian children, and enslaved their loved ones.
All this is amid Russian bombings of Ukrainian hospitals, orphanages and homes. The so-called Freedom Caucus in the House paradoxically opposes helping Ukraine preserve its independence, as if preserving the freedom of Ukrainians were somehow less important than protecting the liberty of other nations and nationalities. The caucus has instead pushed for Congress to vote on Ukraine aid separately — an “achievement” worthy of praise from Moscow, which continues to push Kremlin propaganda that aid to Kyiv is preventing the U.S. from securing its borders.
Fortunately, strong Republicans such as Reps. Bacon, Fitzpatrick and McCaul have stood their ground, and last month, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer visited Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, promising to do his best to persuade Mr. Johnson to allow a floor vote to pass a foreign aid package.
“We told him that we were confident that if Johnson put it on the floor, it would pass,” Mr. Schumer said. “We said if Johnson came to Ukraine and saw what we saw, we couldn’t imagine him not being for it and putting it on the floor. Johnson should not let politics get in the way of doing the right thing.”
With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Johnson could get aid and ammunition to Ukraine’s freedom fighters. But even after Republican Rep. Mike Turner led a bipartisan delegation to Kyiv last month to assure Mr. Zelenskyy that the U.S. would not abandon his countrymen, Mr. Johnson remained unmoved, leaving Ukraine’s soldiers nearly defenseless.
One Ukrainian battery commander recently told CNN that his army’s stockpiles are so low that he has to give orders on when to fire to save bullets.
“Last summer, we used 100 shells per day,” the Ukrainian commander told CNN. “The enemy infantry did not even think about moving here. They had no plans to advance because they knew that every unit that was here would use everything they had to repel their attack.”
Now the 24-year-old commander orders his troops to shoot only at priority targets such as tanks and rocket systems, despite having Russian infantry in their line of fire.
Ukraine’s troops have the will to win, and with our weapons, they can drive out Russia just as Afghanistan expelled the Soviets in 1989. But time is running out.
Last month, Russian troops advanced west, driving 1.2 million Ukrainians — two-thirds of the Donetsk region — from their homes.
“Almost every street has a damaged building. Workers replace gold panels on a church after they were blown off by a missile strike on the neighboring train station, now destroyed,” a March 6 BBC report reads. “Anxiety fills the cold air in this town, once part of the industrial heartland of the former Soviet Union. Russia slowly destroys cities as it tries to take them. That’s what is feared the most here.”
In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan said, “We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives — on every continent from Afghanistan to Nicaragua — to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.”
Despite the delusions of those who believe Moscow could be a U.S. ally against Beijing, Vladimir Putin’s brutal regime has turned the Russian Federation into a successor state of the USSR. Mr. Putin’s threats to the West, invasions of former Soviet republics, and state-sponsored terrorism against his own people are all evidence that Russia remains, in Reagan’s words, “the evil empire.”
The war for Ukraine’s survival is a battle for the soul of the Republican Party and America itself — a test of our moral courage, compassion, and commitment to preserve freedom around the world — principles that once defined core American and GOP values.
Mr. Johnson has a chance to make history. However, like his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, he may face a backlash vote for his ouster. Still, the speaker should not bow to fear. Moral courage and compassion are more important than political popularity and power. If Mr. Johnson follows that creed, he will help save lives and defend a blossoming democracy that has proved its willingness to stand with America — even at its own peril.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a former Washington prosecutor and presidential appointee of the Trump administration (2017-2021) who has reported extensively on Russia. On May 19, he was categorized as No. 467 on a list of 500 Americans who were banned from entering the Russian Federation.
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