Politico
Cheney urges Johnson to act: Don’t do what Trump and Putin want you to do
Kelly Garrity – February 18, 2024
Former Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to call the House back from its recess and introduce the bill that would send desperately needed aid to Ukraine — even if it means risking his speakership.
“He ought to understand that it is worth it if he has to lose his speakership in order to make sure that freedom survives, in order to make sure that the United States of America continues to play its leadership role in the world,” the Wyoming Republican said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The Senate last week advanced a $95 billion aid package that included roughly $60 billion in aid for Ukraine as it works to fend off Russia’s invasion, a cause Republicans once broadly backed.
But Johnson, who has a razor-thin majority in the House, has been critical of the bill in the face of pressure from former President Donald Trump, and resisted taking it up before he adjourned the House for a two-week recess. “The mandate of national security supplemental legislation was to secure America’s own border before sending additional foreign aid around the world,” he said.
Cheney, who was ousted from her position in the GOP House leadership after refusing to waver in her criticism of Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection, urged Johnson not to give in to outside pressure.
“He’s going to have to explain to future generations to his kids, to his grandkids whether or not he did what was right, whether or not he was a force for good and aided the cause of freedom, or whether he continued down this path of cowardice and doing what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin wanted him to do,” Cheney told host Jake Tapper, tying their rhetoric together through the death of Putin foe Alexei Navalny.
“When you think about Donald Trump, for example, pledging retribution,” she said, “what Vladimir Putin did to Navalny is what retribution looks like in a country where the leader is not subject to the rule of law, and I think that we have to take Donald Trump very seriously.”