When the House passed a $40 billion emergency funding bill for Ukraine in September 2022, support for Ukraine was largely still a bipartisan issue. But a little-known conservative congressman from Louisiana was one of the 57 Republicans to oppose it.
Washington
The evolution of Mike Johnson on Ukraine
The move marks a major victory and dramatic turnabout for the speaker who is trying to gain control of a bitterly divided Republican conference. The far-right is fiercely against Ukraine aid — 112 Republicans, just over half of the conference, opposed it on the House floor Saturday and he had to rely on unanimous Democratic backing — and Johnson’s decision to greenlight a floor vote could come at great political cost. He could very well lose his job as speaker over it.
It is also a major rebuke to former president Donald Trump, who publicly backed Johnson at a recent Mar-a-Lago event but has long criticized Ukraine while repeatedly sympathizing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Johnson appears fully aware of the consequences of his decision to send money to Ukraine for its grinding war against Russia. He made the difficult decision despite threats from an angry and vocal minority of hard-right Republicans — ironically, the ones who helped catapult him into power — who are using their conservative bully pulpit to challenge Johnson and threaten his job.
He seems to have accepted his fate.
“Look, history judges us for what we do,” said an emotional Johnson, holding back tears and with a quivering lip at a news conference this week in response to a question from The Washington Post. “This is a critical time right now, critical time on the world stage. I could make a selfish decision and do something that’s different, but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing.”
Johnson’s son will be headed to the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall. “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine, than American boys,” he said. “This is a live-fire exercise for me and for so many American families.”
The speaker’s torturous path to embracing Ukraine aid is the result of many factors: high-level intelligence briefings as a House leader, his faith, the counsel of three committee chairs named Mike, and a realization the GOP would never unite on Ukraine. This story is drawn from interviews with more than than a dozen lawmakers and staff, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Johnson’s evolution. The speaker’s office did not respond to an interview request.
Johnson rose to power as a member of the conservative, isolationist camp with little influence in the party. After the 2020 election, he spent his political capital encouraging his colleagues to help overturn the results. He had never had a high-level intelligence briefing, had never met President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He had no meaningful relationship with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.)
In a matter of moments, Johnson became second in line to the presidency. The day after he was elected speaker last October, he met with Biden and the three House national security panel chairs — Reps. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) — who brought him to the White House for a worldwide threats briefing heavy on Ukraine. Former CIA director and ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo became an informal adviser.
The new speaker heard from evangelical Christians in the United States and Ukraine about the persecution of Ukrainian Christians by Russia. Over the next months, the other congressional leaders twice brought him to the White House to meet with Biden, where he got an earful about the importance of this moment in history from the president, McConnell and Schumer.
One Republican House member recalls: “I’ll never forget Johnson one time said, ‘I’ve gone from representing my district only to representing the entire [House] and the country.’ For someone to go from where he was to where he is now as quickly as he did … is remarkable.”
But as Johnson was warming to Ukraine aid, some say as early as December or January, the issue continued to create deep fissures within the GOP. The anti-Ukraine hard-liners grew louder and more steadfast as pro-Ukraine Republicans quietly and privately grew more frustrated and impatient with Johnson and their colleagues.
At a meeting earlier this month of conservative members of the Republican Study Committee, freshman Rep. Max L. Miller (Ohio), stood before three dozen of his fellow Republicans with tears in his eyes.
He told his colleagues that two-thirds of his family were exterminated in the Holocaust, insisting that his personal story could have ended differently had the United States intervened earlier. The same unnecessary story of lives lost could happen in Ukraine, he warned, if the United States ends its financial and militaristic support.
Ultimately, Johnson decided on advancing the Senate bill broken into three parts with a minor modification. A portion of the $60 billion bill for Ukraine would be a loan. A second bill would provide about $17 billion in weapons for Israel, as well as just over $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza and elsewhere. The third bill would contain $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region to deter China. To appease his members, he’d add a fourth bill of Republican priorities, including banning TikTok and seizing Russian assets.
All four bills passed overwhelmingly on Saturday and will be taken up in the Senate this week. But until the 11th hour, Johnson, who many Republicans lamented was an indecisive leader, searched for consensus.
Johnson momentarily retreated after the anti-Ukraine faction expressed outrage hours after he released his proposal Monday. He convened a meeting of about a dozen ideologically diverse Republicans on Tuesday, which lasted four hours, well past 11 p.m. and was described by participants as heated, intense and angry. “The battle lines were very clear in the end,” one Republican said.
National-security conscious Republicans tried to impress upon more far-right members the importance of imminently funding U.S. allies. Turner, Rogers and McCaul shared their latest assessments with the group based on intelligence.
But the hard-liners didn’t care. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who was responsible for sparking the ouster of former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), had defended Johnson. Gaetz now warned Johnson if he moved forward with his plan, he would be toppled from the speaker’s job. He cautioned other Republicans that if they backed Johnson’s plan, hard-liners would attack them on social media and endorse primary challengers.
Johnson had a whiteboard and searched frantically for a path of least resistance. Numerous ideas were floated but the most serious was to put forward a slimmed-down Ukraine bill including lethal aid only and tied to a harsh border security bill, which is what the hard-liners wanted.
Multiple participants said the meeting wasn’t constructive except for one discovery: Several members for the first time heard some of the hard-liners declare they would refuse to back Ukraine aid under any circumstances.
The meeting ended without resolution. But Johnson mostly stayed the course.
Throughout the process, other members of leadership had little insight into Johnson’s thinking. But, publicly, they backed him as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the far-right member who wants Johnson out, gained additional support.
The pro-Ukraine Republicans rallied around Johnson, who has called himself a member of the MAGA wing. At a meeting Wednesday evening with Main Street Republicans, a conservative but pragmatic group, they applauded when Johnson entered. “How does it feel to be a RINO?” one asked jokingly, referring to an insult aimed at Republicans who appear to have gone soft.
Johnson gave a simultaneous shrug, awkward chuckle and a gentle pump of his fist.
“He came out of the meeting realizing that the people he used to hang out with … that they do not have his best interests at heart,” one Republican in the room said. “And a group of men and women that he barely knew are going to help him navigate through the disaster that is on Capitol Hill.”
“Mike Johnson was dealt a terrible hand of cards,” Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who chairs the Main Street Caucus, said. “Not all politicians make that same choice. That was not a foregone conclusion on the day he was elected speaker.”
Early this year, Johnson started to suggest in conference meetings that he was open to funding Ukraine, making statements about being a “Reagan Republican” who believed in “peace through strength.” That’s when a far-right whisper campaign started as early as January about ousting Johnson if he dared move on Ukraine without first securing the southern border.
Meanwhile, the Senate was haggling over a bipartisan border security measure as part of its foreign aid package, including help for Ukraine. Those months-long negotiations bought Johnson time. But when Republicans in both the House and the Senate, led by Trump, immediately rejected the bipartisan border security plan, it became clear there was no chance such a measure could pass Congress.
That meant Johnson would have to choose whether to rely on support from the sizable pro-foreign aid faction of House Republicans and Democrats to back Ukraine aid or acquiesce to demands by his right flank and do nothing.
The Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill in February with 70 votes, significant bipartisan support omitting any border security component. But Johnson dithered even as Ukraine struggled on the battlefield, running out of ammunition and morale. He vowed to address must-pass legislation with deadlines first, including funding the government and approving an extension of foreign surveillance legislation known as FISA.
In fact, tensions among Republicans had been simmering for months. At a February leadership retreat in Florida, a group of over a dozen committee chairs and members of leadership kicked staff out of the room and got into a heated argument over Ukraine. Pro-Ukraine members sparred with those who argued there’s no point in sending aid to the country.
Republican infighting only grew. Many Republicans dismissed what the intelligence showed or refused to attend briefings, causing alarmed Republicans to say that misinformation and Russian propaganda has seeped into the Republican Party. Evangelical Christians tried to bend Johnson’s and his staff’s ear, pointing to the influence of propaganda from the Russian Orthodox Church. Johnson met with Pavlo Unguryan, a Ukrainian evangelical leader, who had been pushing for U.S. support.
Johnson is a devout Southern Baptist and his faith “guides him in every major decision he makes,” one Republican member said.
Johnson was given polling from the American Action Network, the policy arm of the Republican affiliated super PAC, that found a large majority of voters favor aid to Ukraine in battleground districts and that favoring Ukraine aid was not a principle deciding factor for Republican primary voters. The polling reassured Johnson there was little political risk to funding Ukraine, an important data point when working to persuade his GOP colleagues.
This month, Johnson started to turn his attention to Ukraine behind the scenes. His most vociferous critic, Greene, introduced a motion to ultimately toss him from the speaker’s chair if Ukraine aid came to the floor. Many Republicans believed that Johnson would ultimately move a Ukraine bill, but the speaker remained coy.
Johnson was still searching for a solution that would appease the hard-liners while also satisfying the national security hawks. He was in search of a path that was as painless as possible and one that would preserve his job.
He opened discussions with the White House to see if they would accept any Republican demands, including turning the aid to Ukraine into a loan and seizing Russian assets. The White House maintained that it preferred the Senate bill.
Johnson also received a private, classified and sobering briefing from CIA director William J. Burns about the status of the war in Ukraine and its implications.
A steady stream of European leaders and ministers have knocked on Johnson’s door in recent months, telling the congressman from Louisiana that his place among global statesmen is assured if he got this done.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron applied some debonair wit. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of Ukraine’s sharpest backers, told Johnson what it was like to live in a nation that borders Russia. Just this week, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala met with Johnson and told him that the world’s eyes were on him.
“I really do believe the intel and in the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said last week. “I believe [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination.
Ultimately, Johnson put a Ukraine bill on the floor. And he may lose his job because of it.
“I think he figured out the best way possible in a really terrible situation to allow people to vote,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said. “It takes some semblance of fortitude to do that.”
Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.
Bagel shop manager Fernando Mejia was arrested by federal agents just over a year ago in the Port Washington store’s parking lot. Since then, including Monday evening, members of the Port Washington community have kept a weekly vigil to honor Mejia, who they consider one of their own, and bring attention to how his abrupt arrest, and ultimate deportation, left a void in his family, at his workplace and among anyone in town who knew him.
For 52 consecutive Mondays, they have flocked to the Main Street side of the Port Washington Long Island Rail Road station as a tribute to Mejia and their other immigrant neighbors who have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and never returned home. The weekly 7 p.m. effort, dubbed the “Port Shines a Light in a Sea of Darkness” vigil by organizers, began a few weeks after Mejia’s June 12 arrest and has continued, even after he agreed to self deport and return to family in his native El Salvador.
Vigil co-organizer Jeff Seigel, 68, told the crowd of about 75 people — many toting handwritten protest signs — that Mejia was “doing well, although well is a relative term.”
Mejia is unable come back to Port Washington to see his teenage daughter, who stood in the crowd Monday evening and who Seigel said flies to El Salvador for visits.
Fernando Mejia was arrested by federal agents on June 12, 2025 outside the Port Washington bagel shop he managed. Credit: Courtesy: Lauren Wax
“He came here when he was about 20 years old, and here in the United States is where he became a man,” Seigel, 68, said. “He worked very hard, always. And it is here in the United States where he became a father. … After five months in detention, he could no longer wait to see if the immigration court would rule in his favor.”
Mejia, the former manager of Schmear Bagel & Cafe on Main Street, one block west of where each vigil is held, was one of about 3,000 Long Islanders arrested by federal immigration agents through March 10 as part of President Donald Trump’s ramped-up deportation push since his return to power, Newsday previously reported.
Mejia had just started his car in the bagel shop’s parking lot about 6:30 a.m. on June 12 to make a delivery when federal agents converged and placed him under arrest. Over the months that followed, Mejia bounced from facility-to-facility — first in Manhattan, then in Newark, Louisiana and Miami. He does not have a criminal record, his attorney, Bryan Richard Pu-Folkes, previously told Newsday. Pu-Folkes said at the time Mejia was likely detained due to a January 2006 deportation order from the Executive Office for Immigration Review for unlawful presence in the country.
Pu-Folkes did not immediately return a phone message Monday seeking comment. Mejia could not be immediately reached for comment.
The weekly efforts help community organizers raise awareness and funds for legal fees and even food for immigrants in the community. Another goal, said Stan Lacy, also a vigil organizer, is distributing whistles throughout the community. As Lacy and other members of Port Washington’s Rapid Response Network drive around Port Washington and encounter ICE agents, they blow whistles to alert immigrants of their presence.
After a trio of arrests “a little over a month ago,” ICE’s presence has been “relatively quiet,” he said.
Fellow organizer Stacey Mellus told Newsday the weekly vigils sometimes draw immigrants thankful for the community support, but not so much “when more ICE activity is in the area, when the climate gets a little more hot.”
“I witnessed one of those abductions here, you’re never going to get over something like that,” Mellus, 50, of Port Washington, said. “I’m never going to get over seeing people separated from their families, people yelling ‘don’t take my husband.’ “
Washington
Supreme Court rules states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting Trump-led challenge
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states should be allowed to count ballots that are mailed on time but arrive after Election Day.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
The decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is a defeat for President Donald Trump who has repeatedly claimed mail-in voting encourages fraud, an assertion not backed up by evidence. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. also joined the court’s three liberals in the ruling.
The question before the court was whether Mississippi was acting legally when it permitted ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrived within five business days of the election.
“The federal election-day statutes do not preempt Mississippi’s law because the defining element of an ‘election’ has always been the electorate’s choice of candidate,” the decision said.
A voter’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received, it said.
Thirteen other states have grace periods for ballots cast by mail. Another 15 have longer deadlines for military and overseas voters.
Last year, Trump signed an executive order that would require votes to be “cast and received” by Election Day, but it has been blocked by court challenges.
Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart noted during arguments before the Supreme Court in March that the Trump administration had failed to produce a single case of fraud due to mail ballots that arrived after Election Day.
Among the state with deadlines after Election Day are California, Texas, New York and Illinois. Rural areas of Alaska also allow post-Election Day ballots.
The Associated Press reported that four states dominated by Republican lawmakers, Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah, dropped their grace periods last year. That’s according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Voting Rights Lab.
President Donald Trump said he voted by mail in a Florida election due to scheduling conflicts, explaining he could not be there in person. The remarks come as Palm Beach County records show Trump cast a mail ballot in an upcoming special election, despite his public criticism of the voting method as fraudulent.
During arguments, some of the conservative justices seemed skeptical of late-arriving mail ballots. Justice Samuel Alito for example asked about the appearance of fraud if ballots that arrived after Election Day flipped an election.
The liberal justices on the other hand indicated they would uphold the state laws and noted that federal law allows states to set their own regulations governing elections. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the states and Congress should decide the issue, not the courts.
Federal law sets Election Day as “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.”
Mississippi passed its election law during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was challenged by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party and others.
An appellate court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, struck down Mississippi’s grace period. Judge Andrew Oldham wrote that the state law allowing the late-arriving ballots to be counted violated federal law.
The three judges who decided Mississippi’s law was unconstitutional were all appointed by Trump during his first term.
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