Read about the breakthrough vote, which was preceded by a campaign by evangelical Christians and intelligence leaders, in the translation of the article “Inside House Speaker Mike Johnson’s conversion on aid for Ukraine” by the Financial Times.
In the last week of February, a large billboard appeared across the street from Mike Johnson’s home church in Benton, Louisiana.
“For such a time as this,” it read, quoting a Bible verse alongside a picture of a damaged Baptist church in Berdiansk, Ukraine. It addressed Johnson by his first name. The ad was paid for by Razom, a Ukrainian human rights group, and appealed to Johnson’s deep Christian faith – and his power as Speaker of the House to secure billions of dollars in U.S. funding to defend Ukraine from a full-scale Russian invasion.
The campaign bore fruit last week when Johnson shocked Washington and US allies around the world by allowing the House of Representatives to vote on the aid, unlocking $95 billion in funds for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The Senate also passed the package on Tuesday evening, allowing President Joe Biden to sign it on Wednesday. The Pentagon announced that $1 billion worth of weapons from U.S. military stockpiles would be sent immediately, an important boost at a time when Russian forces are threatening to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses.
It marks a huge reversal for Johnson, who had previously voted repeatedly against aid to Ukraine and used his power as speaker for months to block a vote on new support. And it ends a months-long behind-the-scenes campaign by intelligence chiefs, White House officials, European diplomats and evangelical Christians from Ukraine to convince him.
People close to Johnson insist that he has long been sympathetic to the plight of the Ukrainian people and has spent recent months trying to find a way forward to satisfy warring factions within the Republican Party, including isolationists who have threatened to remove him from power over his support for Ukraine.
“He has never lacked clarity about who is right and who is wrong in this conflict,” said one person close to Johnson.
The White House first contacted Johnson only a few days after he became speaker in October, according to administration officials, who said he was first briefed on Ukraine by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
However, until February of this year, it was Biden who exerted pressure, summoning Johnson to the Oval Office and urging him to stop stalling on the Kyiv-Israel funding bill that the Senate had passed a few weeks earlier.
Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, described the meeting as one of the “most intense” he had ever been involved in. But when Johnson emerged, he gave no indication that he had been persuaded. European countries, fearing that the new US support for Ukraine was dead, scrambled to find alternative funds for Kyiv.
Ukrainian military leaders warned that they were running out of ammunition.
In retrospect, people familiar with the Oval Office meeting now say it was crucial to Johnson’s willingness to negotiate. The attendees, who also included House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, were briefed on Ukraine by Sullivan and CIA Director Bill Burns.
According to administration officials, Johnson was recently briefed again by Burns, who hosted the speaker’s staff at CIA headquarters to talk about Ukraine, on March 29.
Johnson also received briefings from senior Pentagon officials, including the United States European Command. The intelligence was compelling.
“I really believe the intelligence and the briefings that we’ve received,” Johnson said last week, explaining his decision to schedule the vote.
“I believe that Xi [Jinping], Vladimir Putin and Iran are indeed an axis of evil… I think Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he was allowed to.”
Razom, the Ukrainian group behind the billboard in Louisiana, meanwhile tried to get the speaker’s attention in other personal ways. They organized an appearance for Roman Rubchenko, a Ukrainian basketball star who played for USC, to speak to voters in Louisiana about the war.
Razom also organized the sending of a helmet and a letter from Ukrainian firefighters on the front lines with Russia to Johnson, whose late father served as a firefighter in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Private meetings between Johnson, a devout Baptist, and persecuted Ukrainian Christians were also “a big factor,” said Melinda Haring, senior counsel at Razom.
Pavlo Ungurian, a Ukrainian evangelical leader who met with Johnson after Biden’s State of the Union address in March, helped organize a meeting last week, before the House vote, with Serhiy Gaidarzhi, a fellow Baptist whose wife and four-month-old son were killed in a Russian drone attack in Odesa in early March.
During his backroom talks with the White House, Johnson emphasized the need for accountability on how Ukraine’s money will be spent, a major concern of some Republican aid skeptics, and called for stronger sanctions against Russian businesses and organizations. He also insisted on White House assurances that Kyiv would receive more ATACMS, a longer-range American tactical missile system than Ukraine already has, as well as ammunition and other weapons systems.
According to people involved, Johnson’s demands for weapons reflected requests from Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a December meeting with Johnson. Johnson also made the move to shore up support for his position within the party.
On April 12, he traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump. The former president, who is an outspoken isolationist, has already come under pressure from several pro-Ukrainian foreign leaders, including British Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron, who advocated for more Kyiv support for Trump during a dinner on April 9.
Johnson used the meeting to tell Trump that he would hold a vote on aid to Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Trump expressed his approval of the speaker at a press conference after the meeting.
His reaction a few days later, when Johnson announced his plan, was muted.
But by then, Iran had launched a massive air attack on Israel on April 13, striking a U.S. ally and changing the mood in Washington. Johnson laid out his plans for a four-part national security package two days later, when Congress returned from a weekend of urgent foreign policy discussions.
Later that evening, he spoke on the phone with Biden, who had also called him the day before.
“Iran’s attack on Israel was a big part of it, which from his point of view added to the urgency,” said one person familiar with Johnson’s thinking.
“The world must see that the United States is standing behind Israel.”
“It’s live-fire training for me, as it is for many families,” Johnson told reporters last week, referring to his son, who will begin training at the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall.
“Frankly speaking, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than to the American guys… We have to do the right thing, and history will judge us.”
The evangelical leader Ungurian refused to comment on the details of his private conversations with Johnson, saying only that his “brother in Christ” was praying for the Ukrainian people.
“Speaker Johnson was on his knees praying that Almighty God would give him the wisdom to make this very important decision,” he said.
The participation of representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is also not public in this situation, but they probably ensured the implementation of this non-public advocacy (editor’s note).