On January 17, House Speaker Mike Johnson led a candlelight vigil at the Capitol to mark the recent passing of the 100th day of hostage-holding by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Members of Congress assembled shoulder to shoulder with families of hostages. The Republican speaker delivered a heartfelt speech. “We must stand together in solidarity with the Jewish people,” he said. “And we will, from the synagogues in Brooklyn to the country churches of my home in northwest Louisiana, from the Senate to the House—we support Israel, believing that we can overcome the darkness with light.”
This weekend, Congress sees another 100-day anniversary go by—this one dating from when President Joe Biden requested $106 billion in emergency defense aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as additional funding for border enforcement.
For those 100 days, Congress has refused to act on Biden’s request. The main obstacle is the House of Representatives, and within the House, the pro-Trump MAGA caucus that toppled the previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy. The MAGA caucus then vetoed McCarthy’s most eligible successors, eventually bringing the ultra-Trumpist Johnson to his high office, which is second only to the vice president in the presidential succession.
Johnson has advertised himself as a friend of Israel. He scheduled hearings so that House members could interrogate college presidents about their failure to prevent anti-Semitic harassment on campus. Two of those presidents ultimately lost their job: the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and Harvard’s Claudine Gay.
But when it comes to aiding allies in a shooting war, rather than a culture war, suddenly Johnson and his caucus are nowhere to be found.
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Because the background political reality is that Donald Trump is an enemy of Ukraine and an admirer of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. As Trump has neared renomination, his party—especially in the House of Representatives—has surrendered to his pro-Putin pressure. Biden overestimated the time available to keep aid flowing to Ukraine because he underestimated the servility of House Republicans to Trump’s anti-Ukraine animus.
The term betrayal implies they once had the peoples’ best interest in mind and were working on their behalf. The party may have betrayed the people 200 years ago, but what we are seeing today is not a betrayal.