House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is in a bind.
To his left stand his more moderate Republican colleagues, pressing for more Ukraine aid. On his right, the GOP’s “America First” wing warns not a penny more for foreign wars while the United States’ own national security is endangered by open borders.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks to reporters outside of his office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Feb. 5, 2024. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
It’s a narrow tightrope the speaker must walk where a move in either direction could cast his conference—and the House—into chaos. But he appeared nonetheless optimistic on March 31 that he could strike the right balance.
“Look, what we have to do in an era of divided government—historically, as we are—is you got to build consensus. When it comes to the supplemental [funding for Ukraine], we’ve been working to build that consensus,” he said in a Fox News interview.
Johnson revealed that legislation to further assist Ukraine in its war with Russia is already in the works—but with some “innovations.” Solutions being explored include offering the aid in the form of a loan and using the seized assets of Russian oligarchs to compensate Ukraine for its losses.
“There’s a lot of things that we should do that make more sense and that, I think, we’ll have consensus around,” the speaker said.
Congress is currently in a two-week Easter recess and Johnson added: “We’re putting that product together and we’ll be moving it right after district work period.”
Members are set to return to the Hill next week, but first, Johnson has another problem to address: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) motion to vacate the speakership.
Greene filed the motion to oust Johnson on March 22 after he worked with Democrats to pass the remaining spending bills for fiscal year 2024. As the motion was not privileged, it will only come to the floor if the congresswoman decides to act on it.
“Marjorie’s a friend. She’s very frustrated about, for example, the last appropriations bills. Guess what? So am I,” Johnson told Fox News.
“These are not the perfect pieces of legislation that you and I, and Marjorie, would draft if we had the ability to do it differently,” he continued. “But with the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like.”
The speaker said he and Greene would hash things out this week.
—Samantha Flom and Aaron Pan
TALKING SOFTLY WITH A $1.7 TRILLION STICK
In terms of nuclear brinkmanship, President Teddy Roosevelt said it best decades before such weapons existed when he launched the Great White Fleet on its 1907–1909 world tour: “Talk softly but carry a big stick.”
When Pentagon officials concluded a routine March 8 press conference by announcing, oh-by-the-way, “certain” Air Force F-35As are now carrying the B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb, it slipped under the radar of most media anticipating the pending release of President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 $895.2 billion defense budget request.
Four F-35A's of Hill Air Force Bases 388th and 419th fighter wings sit on the runway waiting for take-off in Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on Nov. 19, 2018. George Frey/Getty Images
But it reverberated across Western Europe and came as a lightning strike to Kremlin military brass and Russia President Vladimir Putin, who’d been openly musing, openly threatening, use of tactical nuclear weapons.
This was the Pentagon’s muted yet menacing response: Here now is the first “fifth-generation” stealth that will carry conventional and nuclear weapons and, with F-35s increasingly the fighter of choice by NATO nation air forces, they’re all over Western Europe. The Dutch inadvertently confirmed their F-35As were carrying B61-12s in October.
It is, some say, the equivalent of expanding the United States’ 70-year “nuclear triad” into a “nuclear tetrad.”
Except this is the F-35—the most controversial, expensive weapons system in the history of the world.
First envisioned in the early 1990s, it was touted by Lockheed-Martin as the all-purpose, next-generation stealth fighter that would replace 16 different types of warcraft, including the Navy’s F-14, Air Force’s F-16, and Marine Corps’ Harrier jump jets.
Thirty years later, many doubts about the F-35 persist. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in April 2023 that since 2004, F-35 development has cost more than $1.7 trillion.
The F-35 saga has been well-documented, including in The Epoch Times, especially by retired U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) John Mills and retired U.S. Navy Capt. Bret Ramsey.
Mike Fredenburg, founding president of the Adam Smith Institute of San Diego who writes frequently on defense tech, including for The Epoch Times, admits: “I’m not a huge fan of the F-35.”
Fredenburg told The Epoch Times the F-35 is “the largest single-engine plane in the world” and remains “too heavy” to reliably complete missions.
There’s nothing new with this. But maybe engineers have addressed this flaw. Maybe that’s what they’re wondering in the Kremlin.
Maybe that’s the point.
“It does create a bit of angst on the part of the Russians because that means they have more potential platforms, more different areas, more places to keep track of,” Fredenburg said.
“A lot of this is just information warfare, SOP [standard operating procedure] and optics,” Mills told The Epoch Times. “The message is that the F-35s are now there and they are nuclear certified and B61-12s are in storage ready to go, ready to be used, if necessary.
It’s all about Putin.
“Of course,” he said. “He’s the target.”
—John Haughey
BOOKMARKS
Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys may again seek the recusal of the judge overseeing his hush money case, The Epoch Times’ Chase Smith reports. The news comes amid the revelation that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s daughter and her political consulting firm have profited off the case.
President Joe Biden denied responsibility on April 1 for his own official proclamation declaring March 31—Easter Sunday—as “Transgender Day of Visibility,” The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan reports. His response comes amid backlash from Republicans and conservatives.
A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to expand fair lending rules for many institutions, The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports. The rules were due to take effect on April 2.
A Texas judge has released some illegal immigrants charged with participating in a riot at the southern border, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reports. The incident in question drew national attention last month when footage of dozens of illegal immigrants rushing a border fence went viral on social media.
An illegal immigrant who advised his Venezuelan TikTok followers on how to take over U.S. citizens’ homes has been arrested by the feds, The Epoch Times’ Bill Pan reports. His arrest comes amid increasing reports of illegal immigrants invoking squatters’ rights laws to occupy uninhabited properties.
The Florida Supreme Court approved Florida’s 15-week abortion limit in a long-awaited ruling on April 1, The Epoch Times’ Jacob Burg reports. The ruling paves the way for the state’s more recent six-week limit to take effect, though a second ruling regarding an abortion-related ballot initiative could end up negating both laws.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has collected enough signatures to appear on North Carolina’s general election ballot, The Epoch Times’ Louderback reports. The independent presidential candidate will be listed under the We the People Party, which he established earlier this year.
