WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson wants an in-person, one-on-one meeting with President Joe Biden before proceeding with a supplemental aid package with funding for Ukraine and Israel, a source close to the Louisiana Republican told NBC News.
Johnson and his staff have requested the meetings with Biden through senior White House officials several times over the past two months after the speaker’s January trip to the U.S. border in Eagle Pass, Texas, the source said.
The most recent request for a meeting with the president came just over a week ago, several days before the Senate passed a bipartisan $95 billion national security package and before House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Johnson’s requests for a meeting with Biden were not necessarily pertaining to the Senate’s version of the supplemental aid; rather, a general path forward on a legislative package.
The Senate bill includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and passed with support from 70 senators.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday that Biden “refuses” to meet with Johnson.
“Ultimately, the two of them could come to an agreement that can become law,” Scalise said. “And yet the president refuses to even meet. So the president can’t say he’s serious about Ukraine or the border when he refuses to meet with the speaker so they can come to an agreement on this issue.”
A White House official pointed to what the administration characterized as Johnson’s inconsistencies on the border, saying that the speaker needed to wrap the negotiations he’s having with himself and stop delaying national security needs in the name of politics.
“That body language says, ‘I know I’m in a tough spot. Please bail me out,’” said a Democratic source involved with the supplemental aid package.
Biden met with Johnson alongside other congressional leaders less than a month ago to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal that would have unlocked aid to Ukraine. Johnson at the time called it “productive” meeting.
The president also spoke with Johnson last month about border security.
Johnson has said that any aid package must be paired with changes to U.S. border policy. However, the bipartisan border security bill negotiated between the parties was spiked by Senate Republicans this month, and it has been roundly criticized by Johnson.
In a statement Monday, Johnson said the Senate “should have gone back to the drawing board to amend the current bill to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe. Instead, the Senate’s foreign aid bill is silent on the most pressing issue facing our country.”
Now that the Senate has passed an aid package for Ukraine and Israel that doesn’t include broad border policy changes, one of Johnson’s options includes putting the bill to a vote on the House floor, though the scenario appears to be increasingly unlikely as Republicans voice more skepticism on aid to Ukraine.
Earlier Tuesday, White House spokesman Andrew Bates released a memo calling on the House to pass the Senate bill.
“Will House Republicans side with President Biden and Senators on both sides of the aisle in supporting American national security? Or will House Republicans, in the name of politics, side with Vladimir Putin and the regime in Tehran?” Bates wrote. “The House GOP cannot lose sight of this binary choice. It would be devastating to undercut American national security by voting against our interests and values.”
Johnson this month backed a stand-alone bill that would provide aid to Israel, but the measure fell short of the two-thirds needed for passage under an expedited House rule. Many Democrats had argued that the legislation was politicized because Senate negotiators at the time had agreed to a separate package that addressed aid to Israel, among other measures.
