President Joe Biden is giving a prime-time national address later today under unusual circumstances. The point of the speech is to ask Congress to approve $100 billion in emergency security funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and border security. But when Biden announced the speech—and indeed as I write this—the House of Representatives still had no speaker, which means it cannot pass the legislation to approve the funds. The House is currently out of order.
So the president must use the occasion, first and foremost, to make this clear. Republicans are discussing a possible compromise that would give the current caretaker speaker, Patrick McHenry, the powers of a normal speaker of the House, temporarily. A proper prime-time shaming might just nudge them to do so.
But the lack of a speaker isn’t the only impediment to Biden’s funding request in the House. Some Republicans, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been treating any funding for Ukraine as a nonstarter when it comes to spending bills. Because the Republican majority is slim, a handful of negative votes would necessitate Democratic votes for the bill to pass. That’s considered traitorous by people like Greene. Such bipartisanship is one reason the speaker’s chair is empty, because a few Republicans wanted to punish Kevin McCarthy…
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