Mike Johnson Jams Mitch McConnell

“Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to seek spending cuts in exchange for $14 billion in new aid for Israel made it easy for Democrats to reject him out-of-hand. But it’s about to make Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s job even harder,” Punchbowl News reports.

“The Kentucky Republican — who doubled down Monday on a huge national-security funding package that addresses Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and more — is seeing his rank-and-file grow even more bitterly divided over how to handle President Joe Biden’s $105 billion supplemental request.”

Playbook: “When he was elected House speaker last week after a hard-right putsch, no one expected Mike Johnson to usher in a bold new era of bipartisanship. But Johnson is showing a special taste for confrontation in his early days with the gavel, setting an aggressive tone for the fights ahead.”