The speaker’s opening moves have set him on a collision course with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), as both Republican leaders simultaneously struggle to manage their own fractious conferences. An ideological conservative who has staunchly sided with former president Donald Trump after both were elected to national office in 2016, Johnson’s brand of conservatism largely aligns with the right-most wing budding in the Senate Republican conference that McConnell has often clashed with.
McConnell — an 81-year-old Republican of a different political generation than Johnson, 51, with a reputation for fiercely pursuing party goals — has in recent years broken with orthodoxy and sided with President Biden and the Senate Democratic majority on key domestic and international priorities. McConnell and much of his conference hope to pass bipartisan bills to fund the government and send aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan to defend their democracies.
But Johnson and his caucus passed a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel this week that lacked Ukraine funding, attaching a partisan measure beloved by many in his conference that would rescind thousands of new IRS employees provided for in Biden’s signature legislative achievement.
The new speaker suggested that if the Senate sends back an Israel aid bill that does not include spending cuts, he won’t put it on the floor.
“We have obligations and we have commitments and we want to protect and help and assist our friend Israel,” Johnson told reporters. “But we have to keep our own house in order as well.”
The bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says would add to the deficit, has been declared dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. McConnell has said he is in line with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) desire to pair billions in aid for Ukraine and Taiwan with the Israel funds, as long as U.S. border policy changes are included — suggesting Johnson may not receive much backup from his Senate counterparts.
“At the risk of repeating myself, the threats facing America and our allies are serious and they are intertwined,” McConnell said this week. “If we ignore that fact, we do so at our own peril.”
The end-of-year rush to address myriad must-pass legislation will test both Republican leaders as their conferences are guaranteed to clash in unforeseen ways this year. Johnson must compromise to get legislation through the Democratic-controlled Senate, but when his predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), did so to pay the country’s debts and keep the government open earlier this year, House Republicans ousted him and McConnell faced growing skepticism from his right flank.
In a move to appease his far-right flank’s demands, Johnson is considering pushing for spending cuts in a short-term funding resolution that must pass two weeks from now to avoid a government shutdown. If Johnson adopts that proposal it would be a non-starter for Senate Democrats and many Republicans who have found bipartisan agreement on how to fund the government.
There are many other reauthorizations Congress must address by the end of the year, including the farm bill, federal aviation, a Pentagon spending bill and legislation on foreign intelligence surveillance.
How each leader handles these hurdles over the next few weeks has high stakes for both of them.
McConnell, who has a reputation for keeping a tight grip over his conference, has faced sharp criticism from some of his more conservative members in recent weeks who are urging him to back Johnson more forcefully instead of pushing to tie Ukraine aid with Israel funds. He is also struggling to address growing furor in his conference over Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) embargo on military nominees, which spilled out into a messy Republican-on-Republican conflict on the Senate floor this week.
“I think McConnell’s position is very, very unpopular,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), long an antagonist of McConnell, told reporters this week, referring to the leader’s support for Ukraine aid. “I think ultimately [it] will fail or bring down the…
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