Why Matt Gaetz Is Responsible for the New Ukraine Aid Bill

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of Congress’s most outspoken opponents of continuing to provide aid to Ukraine, also happens to be the unwitting architect of a forthcoming bill that will do just that.

Gaetz, aided by a small group of Republican rebels and the entirety of the Democratic caucus, led a successful coup against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after McCarthy negotiated a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open last fall. After its passage, Gaetz filed a motion to strip McCarthy of his gavel.

The rest is history. McCarthy was ejected from his perch in the presidential line of succession and Mike Johnson (R-LA) joined it after several other candidates failed to unify the Republican caucus.

“If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention,” boasted Gaetz after all was said and done.

Fast forward to this week when Johnson announced that he would be bringing foreign aid bills for Israel, Taiwan, and, most controversially within his own party, Ukraine, to the House floor for a vote.

“My philosophy is you do the right thing and you let the chips fall where they may. If I operated out of fear of a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job,” explained Johnson on Wednesday. “Look, history judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now, a critical time on the world stage.”

On Friday, the House voted on a rule to advance the bills in preparation for a final vote to determine whether they become law. It not only passed easily, but earned the support of a supermajority of Republicans. Nearly three times as many (151) voted for it as voted against it (55).

Some quick math should help Gaetz figure out what the majority opinion is – and therefore who holds the power within – the GOP.

Now, some of Gaetz’s bomb-throwing colleagues are trying to give Johnson the McCarthy treatment. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has already filed a motion to do just that and Gaetz has not ruled out saying goodbye to “MAGA Mike.”

But this time, Democrats have indicated that they might be willing to protect Johnson if his speakership is threatened by Republicans vexed by the foreign aid bills. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) has admitted that “a lot” of his fellow Democrats “are not going to want to punish him for doing the right thing,” while Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) has vowed to do what he has “to do to make sure he does not lose his job.”

As Axios noted in a report on Thursday, this is something Democrats are willing to do for Johnson, whom they have no longstanding grudge against, but could not bring themselves to do for McCarthy, a longtime member of the Republican leadership team who has gone to war with them for the past tumultuous decade of American politics.

And here’s the most delicious irony of them all: The stopgap spending bill negotiated by McCarthy didn’t include any new funding for Ukraine! He was a far more effective impediment to such a measure than Johnson not because of ideological differences, but because he was more constrained by the GOP caucus.

Johnson deserves all of the credit in the world for calling the bluff of Gaetz and his merry band of nihilists — and risking his speakership — to do the right thing. But it is Matt Gaetz, in all of his myopic, juvenile glory, who set these events in motion.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.