Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, your guide to the top 10 Easter eggs hidden inside the most anticipated release of the year: the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act.
All of 2024 has been leading to this very week in Congress, in which Speaker Mike Johnson finally made a “play call” on Ukraine aid that sent the House into a tizzy. In the Senate, meanwhile, Chuck Schumer received the House’s articles of impeachment, hid them under his shirt while no one was looking, and declared impeachment over. Sen. Tom Cotton found a new way to encourage human conflict. Donald Trump, potentially, slept.
To the House …
By Jim Newell
1. Mike Johnson
Better late than never. But earlier would’ve been preferable!
The speaker of the House deserves genuine credit not only for committing to put Ukraine aid up for a vote in the House, but for breaking through all sorts of unwritten rules about pairing with the minority party on procedural votes to get there. The move doesn’t just put Johnson’s job in jeopardy (either now or down the line). It will forever tarnish his name and reputation among the MAGA right. It’s not merely that he’s putting the bill on the floor—and not through some sneaky, backdoor way, like quietly blessing a discharge petition—but that he’s actively making the case for the historic purpose of this moment. “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies,” he told reporters. “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys.” And yet, we can’t help but ask where this Mike Johnson was earlier. The Senate passed its national security assistance bill—which is quite close to the package Johnson has cobbled together in the House—a couple of months ago, which was already quite late. Ukraine has been desperately low on ammunition for some time, allowing Russia to make steady advances. Johnson appears to have had an epiphany that he would go forward with the right thing regardless of the consequences. The epiphany would’ve been a lot cooler even a few months ago.
2. Thomas Massie
The MAGA McCarthy avengers.
It’s been Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who’s done most of the legwork in pushing to oust Johnson from the speakership. This week, though, her resolution to do just that earned its first co-sponsor: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. Massie announced his decision to join Greene’s effort in a House GOP meeting when he called on Johnson to prep his resignation in order to spare himself the embarrassment of being tossed and to give the conference time to select a new speaker. What’s notable about this pair is that they were the two most outspokenly pro–Kevin McCarthy ultraconservatives during his speakership. They supported McCarthy getting the gavel in the first place, opposed his removal, and defended him steadfastly against their friends’ opposition. That they’re the tip of the spear against Johnson suggests there’s an element of we told you so at work—or just a reassertion of their chaos-agent bona fides after having dutifully obeyed The Man. Fun fact about McCarthy and Johnson: They each would have passed the same stuff in this bill, or any spending bill, because that’s where the votes were. Whether you’re an “establishment” or “true conservative” speaker, your job is still to count to 218.
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3. Donald Trump
Sleeping? We got a sleeper?
The Donald Trump trial in New York began Monday with a lil’ voir dire action, as jurors were seated at a reasonably fast clip. Nevertheless, the tedium of jury selection and pretrial motions can be an exhausting affair for defendants whose ruined brains require round-the-clock visceral stimulation. And so the New York Times reported on the first day that Trump “appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest,” and that the former president’s lawyer “passed him notes for several minutes before Mr. Trump appeared to jolt awake and notice them.” (“Sleepy Joe” Biden would’ve noted the apparent irony, but he too was asleep.) We wouldn’t be surprised if it was Trump’s lawyers who were slipping tranquilizers into his Diet co*kes. Trump is repeatedly walking right up to, and arguably past, the line of his gag order to not trash participants in the trial. The prosecutors in the case are now arguing that he did cross it, a question that will be heard formally in the court next week. If it’s found that he has, he could be fined or given a spell in prison. If there is a way to avoid martyring the guy by giving him the “great honor” of being jailed for a few hours, that would be useful.
4. Chuck Schumer
A constitutional point of order that this is too dumb to consider.
With great pomp and historical weight, Republican members of the House of Representatives crossed the Capitol this week to transmit two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate. It was the first impeachment of a Cabinet member since the Civil War. Then, in a snap of a finger, it was over. After Republicans objected to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plan to allow a few hours of debate over the articles, he laid the hammer down. Twice he raised a constitutional point of order that the conduct in the articles don’t rise “to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor,” and twice that point of order was sustained. The two articles—which mostly argued that the Biden administration’s handling of immigration was bad and dumb—were dismissed. Now, it is exciting to see a new precedent on a constitutional question set in the Senate hundreds of years into its existence. The Senate, rather than immediately going into trial whenever the House sends over some impeachment articles, has now determined for itself that it can adjudicate the seriousness of the charges pre-trial. Republicans argued afterward that Democrats will rue the day they set this precedent. Will they? If everyone knows there’s a party-line vote happening either now or in a week, getting it out of the way saves a lot of time and effort.
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5. Derrick Van Orden
The Freedom Caucus doesn’t have a monopoly on going nuts.
Among the subplots of this climactic week in the House was a question of how far Johnson would go to sideline his far-right nemeses in the Freedom Caucus. His leadership team, egged on by exhausted rank-and-file members, considered making a change to House rules that would raise the threshold for the number of members it requires to get a vote on booting the speaker. (This ever-dangling threat—that any single House member can force a vote to vacate the speakership—is the source of much of the Freedom Caucus’ leverage.) When news that leadership was discussing this rule broke Thursday, Freedom Caucus members surrounded Johnson on the House floor to demand answers. It was one of Johnson’s defenders, though, who made the most noise. Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden broke into the group and started throwing insults and taunting Freedom Caucus members, including by calling Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz “tubby.” (He’s not?) This is not the freshman representative’s first incident during his brief time in Congress. He cursed out a group of teens in the Capitol once—not to be confused with the time he yelled at a teen in a public library—and shouted out “LIES!” during Biden’s State of the Union last month. The House sure has been a fun place for members to work this year, hasn’t it? Oh, look, another up-and-coming 36-year-old Republican in a safe seat is choosing to retire rather than spend any more time in the Capitol.
6. Tom Cotton
We would not recommend getting into fights with protesters.
After pro-Palestinian protesters shut down traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge—among other locations—this week, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton encouraged “people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic” to “take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.” He later clarified that he was not inviting motorists to run over people blocking the road, which is good, because running over people with cars often kills them. What he meant, as he showed in a subsequent post, was that people should get out of their cars and drag protesters out of the way. While that’s certainly a better option than killing people who impede traffic, it’s also not something the Surge would recommend to those who are frustrated with protesters. The proper authorities will remove those blocking traffic, while the impeded drivers will not be arrested for assault after getting out of their cars and dragging people off roadways. Cotton’s opinion may differ, but the Surge does not believe that melees on every protested road would be “good.”
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7. The Kennedys
Don’t vote for our cool and dangerous brother.
The Biden campaign’s efforts to marginalize the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. involved a display of Kennedy Voltron energy in Philadelphia. Fifteen members of the erstwhile dynasty—including (some of these may be wrong) Joseph, Kerry, Slappy, Rory, Dingus, Kathleen, Alfalfa, Maxwell, Christopher, Joe, Spanky, and Tank—joined Biden onstage at a rally on Thursday to offer their mass endorsem*nt. This was seen as a show of force against the RFK Jr. spoiler candidacy. But dare we ask: Are they risking making RFK Jr. look cooler? Man is rejected by his “establishment” family for telling hard truths, such as how vaccines make you grow ears on your leg. Have they considered making ads showing him in leather jackets and smoking cigarettes too? In more important and unsettling news for Democrats, RFK Jr. made the Michigan ballot this week.
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