Mikie Sherrill to Speaker Johnson: 'lead, follow or get out of the way' on aid package

As military conflicts continue in Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis deepens in Gaza, U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill said "time is running out" for the House to pass a foreign aid package to fund Ukrainian resistance and avoid a "powder keg" in the Middle East during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"Israel has got to do more" to allow aid to reach Palestinians in Gaza, the Montclair Democrat added in a call with reporters on Friday. She called for a "negotiated cease-fire" in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, warning it needed to happen soon.

Speaking after she attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany last week, Sherrill, D-11, said the gathering took place "at a critical inflection point where many of our allies are questioning America's leadership role in the world, and our willingness to assume that leadership role."

"They track a lot of what goes on in the House quite closely," she said during the Zoom conference. "They see Speaker Mike Johnson, who seems to be taking his marching orders from a far-right extremist party, from the former president, and obstructing bipartisan negotiation in the Senate to support our allies in Israel and the Asia-Pacific."

Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who leads the House of Representatives, rejected a bipartisan proposal earlier this year that combined aid for Ukraine, Israel and Gaza with stiffer controls on immigration at the U.S. border.

U.S. allies "saw a negotiated border bill kind of fall apart at the direction of the former president," Sherrill said on Friday. "They see [former President] Trump, the presumptive nominee for president, threaten to walk away from NATO. His comments that he would allow Russia to do 'whatever the hell they want' were seen as his indication... that he would walk away from our strategic alliances around the world."

'Lead, follow or get out of the way'

Sherrill said some House Republicans were looking for a way around that obstruction to find an alternate route to passing a $95 million supplemental aid package approved by the Senate on Feb. 13.

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"In the Navy, we had a phrase: 'lead, follow or get out of the way,'" Sherrill said, repeating a phrase attributed to a U.S. Founding Father, Thomas Paine. "That's exactly what Speaker Johnson has to do on this supplemental passage. We have got to get the Senate bill on the floor, passed and on the president's desk. I don't think there is another way forward."

Munich and Ukraine

Sherrill said the U. S. bipartisan delegation at the Munich conference learned of the death of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny during the morning before the conference began. Navalny died in a Russian prison.

"That was like a gut punch," said Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy pilot who sits on the House Armed Services Committee. "He was a spark of hope that someday in Russia, we would see better reforms."

Hearing Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, speak at the conference just days after his death, "really put a personal face on what it was like to live under Putin's regime" and was "a glaring reminder about what we are fighting for, who we're standing with and what a world under Putin would look like."

'Israel has got to do more'

Sherrill also called for supplemental aid to ease tensions and address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Not doing so would runs the risk of building a "dearth of trust" in the U.S.

Sherill said she supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and a negotiated cease-fire, but pressured Israel to make the first move.

"I'm not going to mince words. Israel has got to do more to facilitate the robust delivery of lifesaving aid to innocent Palestinians in Gaza," she said. "I saw warehouses full of aid that has been rejected. A box of child's toys, chocolate croissants, refrigerators, boxes of medicine."

Again, she stressed that "time is running out" to provide that humanitarian aid, especially with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaching and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to continue military action during that time.

"We've got to get this negotiated ceasefire in place," Sherrill said. "I think the deadline everyone feels pressure for is March 9. Ramadan starts March 10 and the Jordanians flagged that they felt like going into Ramadan without a cease-fire would just be like a powder keg in the region."

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com 

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This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Mikie Sherrill pushes to pass bill to fund aid to Ukraine, Middle East