Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday shot down the Biden administration’s request to include $24 billion in Ukraine-related aid as part of an expected short-term spending bill Congress needs to pass by Dec. 20.
The Office of Management and Budget included the funding request in a list sent to Congress late last month. The new tranche of emergency Pentagon funding would go toward furnishing weapons and equipment for Ukraine and refilling U.S. inventories.
But Johnson, asked if he would attach the Ukraine-related money to what is expected to be a spending stopgap into early next year, told reporters: “I’m not planning to do that.”
“There are developments by the hour in Ukraine. … It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now. We have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” Johnson said.
Congress has until Dec. 20 to fund the government and avoid a holiday shutdown. Though some Republicans are holding out hope that they can get a year-end agreement on a sweeping spending bill that would fund the government through the end of September, both House and Senate Republicans increasingly acknowledge that they will need a stopgap.
Johnson told reporters this week that he expects that bill will go into March, though other Republicans want it to go into January, which they argue will help them quickly turn to Trump’s larger legislative agenda.
Johnson is expected to need Democratic help to fund the government given a handful of House Republicans who tend to oppose any short-term funding bills. Johnson met with members of the Freedom Caucus on Tuesday night about the spending bill, with conservatives raising concerns about attaching disaster relief money unless it is paid for.