Johnson Will Pay for Defying Trump on Ukraine
An election year provocation that won’t be forgotten.
AS MIKE JOHNSON UNBURDENED the weight of an embattled nation from his shoulders last week, Donald Trump was adjusting to life as a criminal defendant, mortified and miserable in a New York courtroom. Speaker Johnson handed Ukraine, President Biden, and the free world a victory against Russia’s aggression. He said he believed in sacrificing personally to do the right thing, in the threat our enemies coordinating in China, Iran, and Russia poses to Europe—and to the United States—and in the intelligence he received.
To Trump, this is an abomination. Placing country over party or self? The importance of the rules-based international order? Being on “the right side of history”? All that’s just for suckers. And trusting the deep state? Outrageous.
Johnson was bathed in bipartisan, international praise for his defection. Plaudits from Mike Pence, National Review, Hugh Hewitt, and the Wall Street Journal for his “leadership” twisted the knife. He has taken all the attention from Trump, and been lauded and praised for something righteous and big, while the petty criminal defendant—focused as ever only on himself—looks so small.
This no longer happens. Ever.
The GOP exists now not to win elections, or govern at all, but to serve Trump’s needs. Their donations are his donations, his criminal charges are their political liability. No one steals the spotlight. Everything is defined through the prism of him winning, Biden losing and “loyalty”—how Trump is being treated, by the media, the Democrats, the Biden Department of Justice, the RINOs, judges, etc. Policies can be abandoned, but on pleasing Vladimir Putin, and threatening NATO, Trump has never wavered.
And now, six months before the election, some Republicans have dared to contradict Trump’s worldview, to side with Biden, to defend Ukraine, and to make Putin mad.
“I believe Xi [Jinping] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed,” Johnson said.
MAGA declared a state of emergency for the GOP as soon as Ukraine aid passed the House on Saturday. Johnson and Republicans who support aid were excoriated for working with Democrats, who helped pass the GOP rule and then the package of aid bills. Hardliners, Trump lieutenants, and MAGA voices raced online and to the airwaves to isolate Johnson—as a Democrat, a traitor, a disgrace. Rep. Eric Burlison lamented “I don’t even recognize the person that I once called a friend.”
JOHNSON ISN’T LIKELY TO LOSE HIS JOB: Trump thinks Republicans firing another House speaker is bad for his campaign, most House Republicans realize no one else can do the job either, and Democrats are likely to step in to avert the chaos of another GOP speakership search. Indeed, Johnson was written off as a lame duck months ago. Before his change of heart on Ukraine it was already clear the volatile GOP conference will shuffle their leadership again next January, whether in the majority or the minority.
But Speaker Johnson will remain a permanent target. Calling out “an axis of evil” made him the target of an axis of MAGA—Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump Jr.
Bannon called Johnson a “good man” but said he must go.
Carlson described Johnson as “a host for evil.” He said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that what Johnson did was “absolutely crazy.” Carlson added: “But it’s not because he’s evil. It’s because he’s weak and therefore susceptible to evil.”
Carlson also recently asked, in an interview he did with Marjorie Taylor Greene, if Johnson was being blackmailed to do the bidding of the left. He posted a fundraising email of Johnson’s and wrote “there aren’t many political fundraising pitches more corrupt and harmful than this one.”
Donald Trump Jr. didn’t name Johnson but released a video of him making multiple promises to secure the border and wrote on X: “Pay close attention to those that don’t seem bothered by this. They’re not our friends.”
Again not naming Johnson, DJT Jr. went after him—along with House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Michael McCaul—asking “Why are these GOP Leadership losers like @RepMcCaul pushing a bill that would do the bidding of Democrats and hurt my father’s ability to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine?”
It’s not confusing to those MAGA obsessives for whom DJT Jr.’s videos are appointment streaming. Johnson is a “leadership loser” who has betrayed MAGA and Trump.
In ways seen and unseen Johnson will be punished for his disobedience. And Johnson is not alone.
Newt Gingrich, in defending Johnson, also broke with Trump on the war. “I believe we have to defeat [Vladimir] Putin, period, whatever it takes. If Putin wins in Ukraine, the next stage will be Putin in the three Baltic States and Poland, and then we will be faced with a genuine world war,” he told Politico.
Some current members even called out their anti-Ukraine colleagues out as Kremlin messengers, actively rooting for Putin.
Rep. Don Bacon said that arguments (made by Greene) that “Russia is fighting for Christianity” are “propaganda.” He added: “Unfortunately, a few of my colleagues would like to see the Russians win. I don’t know why that is the case. I think it’s a terrible thing.”
Rep. Dan Crewshaw agreed. “I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the speaker over it, I mean that’s a strange position to take.”
Two of the top four national security committee chairmen—who helped convince Johnson to risk it all for Ukraine—warned of Russian propaganda infecting the House GOP last month. For Republicans to call out their House colleagues on this, as well as their backing of Putin, is extraordinary.
THE ANGER AT JOHNSON, MCCAUL, and those who championed Ukraine’s defense and Russia’s defeat isn’t going to fade. In an election year MAGA can’t spare an ounce of fury.
The Washington Post reported that Matt Gaetz threatened both Johnson and rank-and-file members in a meeting last week—saying the speaker would lose his job and cautioning “other Republicans that if they backed Johnson’s plan, hard-liners would attack them on social media and endorse primary challengers.”
Gaetz spoke of the current situation in the House GOP conference in apocalyptic terms on his podcast. “The risk that one or two of my corrupt Republican colleagues might take a bribe, take a walk, feign an ailment, and flip this thing to the Democrats is a risk that is too high for me at this time.” If Democrats took the majority, their first act, Gaetz said, would “be declaring Donald Trump an insurrectionist and setting up a barrier to him being able to become the president of the United States.”
Greene’s tweets are just as incendiary. While she isn’t likely to succeed in deposing Johnson—and is fast becoming a joke even among her GOP colleagues in Washington—Greene, like Gaetz, has extensive reach in MAGA.
Greene and others continue railing at Johnson for failing to fulfill his promise to secure the border, even knowing that Trump won’t let Johnson do a border deal before the election. A great excuse not to vote to arm Ukraine, and to make Johnson a punching bag.
AS FOR THE FORMER PRESIDENT HIMSELF, Trump didn’t explicitly oppose Johnson. Trump hinted at the possibility that the Ukraine support be structured as a loan—“we’re thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift”—but didn’t exactly endorse that either, and given his past record it appeared as if he intended to dodge getting beaten on the issue. He posted before the vote that defending Ukraine was “important to us”—something he never says. At the same time, he questioned (again) why Europe wasn’t spending more, insisted (again) the war would have never happened if he were president, and implied (again) it wasn’t in our national interest to defend Ukraine since “we have an Ocean between us as separation!” He wondered why we defend Germany since they run “Massive Budget Surpluses” (they don’t).
We know exactly where this is going. If Trump is re-elected and Russia invades a NATO country Trump will not send American forces in to protect our allies and defeat Putin. Not a chance.
We also can expect Johnson to scurry back to Trump’s corner on any issue he can, as soon as he can. He is no hero. After the vote he said “We got to this as quickly as we could,” which isn’t true. And Johnson will support Trump and all his Putin-pleasing, and continue to defend his lies.
This is not a cleansing.
But Johnson rejected Trump’s dangerous isolationist policies on Ukraine and NATO and challenged them directly on the world stage.
Johnson and his colleagues who chose not just to support Ukraine but to speak out have made a personal sacrifice to injure their careers. They have prioritized liberty, and the preservation of the world order, over their own political futures.
Trump keeps lists and will remember all of this. We should too.