House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson of being responsible for some House Republicans opposing additional support for Ukraine, describing the pair as the leaders of the Republican Party’s “pro-Putin faction,” The Hill reported.
In a March 10 interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Jeffries demanded that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson bring the supplemental foreign aid package to the House floor for a vote. He claimed that Johnson was refusing to call for a vote on the package that would give Ukraine an additional $60 billion in aid because a “pro-Putin faction” in the House, led by Trump and Carlson, was blocking the measure.
Jeffries brought up the specter of a possible effort to vacate Johnson’s speakership, telling host Margaret Brennan that while the Democrat caucus had yet to have “that conversation,” he believed that “a reasonable number” of Democrats would oppose the effort if Speaker Johnson does the “right thing.”
In an interview with Politico last Thursday, Speaker Johnson said he expected to pass legislation to provide aid to Ukraine with the help of Democrat House members.
While attending the Republican retreat in West Virginia, Johnson told Politico that the House would vote on separate bills to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Johnson told Politico that he did not think attaching the foreign aid package to a larger appropriations bill would work.
Instead, he said he expected the votes to happen under the House’s suspension calendar, something Johnson has used in recent days to overcome opposition from within the Republican conference.
Using a suspension calendar, legislation would require a two-thirds majority vote on the House floor, which means that the speaker would need the support of a significant number of House Democrats.
The speaker also suggested that splitting aid to Ukraine and Israel into two separate bills was also being considered.
