U.S. Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE), a longstanding supporter of Ukraine, appeared on Face the Nation on Sunday and said that MAGA-aligned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pressed House Republicans last week to vote against sending more aid to Ukraine and imposing tougher sanctions on Russia, including “a 500% tariff on all Russian imports to the U.S., and a ban on Russian crude oil imports into the U.S.”
[NOTE: On Wednesday, after the House voted 218-204 to move forward on the discharge petition to provide military aid to Ukraine and impose further sanctions on Russia, Bacon told his congressional colleagues, “This is our Churchill moment and we must pass the test.” On Thursday, Bacon was one of 18 Republicans who joined Democrats to pass the Ukraine Support Act in a 226-195 vote.]
Bacon said of Johnson: “He lobbied pretty hard… The Speaker whipped against us…He says he’s pro-Ukraine, but the actions speak louder than words.”
In May, Johnson voiced his concern about the vote: “It looks like the war is scaling back, scaling down, coming to a conclusion.” He added, “I think Vladimir Putin said that himself in the last few days, and so this would be a good time for Congress to see how that pans out.”
.@RepDonBacon says @SpeakerJohnson pressed Republicans to vote against aid to Ukraine.
“He lobbied pretty hard… The Speaker whipped against us, so that’s why he drove that number down…He says he’s pro-Ukraine, but the actions speak louder than words.” https://t.co/Gkuulx5iUV
— Will Saletan (@saletan) June 7, 2026
Bacon also criticized President Trump and his approach to the Ukraine-Russia war, which the president, while on the campaign trail, said he would end on “day one” of his second administration.
Bacon said: “The President has had a policy of wanting to negotiate a settlement. I don’t think it’s working. He is too much trying to act like an umpire, trying to work with two different people in a boxing match, but it’s not the case. You have a country that’s invading Ukraine, they’re bombing cities every night. There’s a good-versus-evil here, and America should be, you know, unabashedly for the right side here, the democracy, the country that wants free markets, the country that wants to align with us.”
Bacon added: “Russia hates us. I don’t know why the president can’t see that. Putin hates the United States, he hates what we stand for. So that’s — that’s a problem there when it comes to the House, the Speaker has not wanted his, not wanted to get in front of the president on this, and so he lobbied pretty hard, and we call it whipping against this vote. I think he was wrong.”