Veterans group hits airwaves to thank Johnson on Ukraine

Veterans On Duty, a nonprofit advocacy organization, is preparing a high six-figure television, radio, and digital advertising campaign that will start Wednesday to thank Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans for supporting emergency spending on foreign aid.

The campaign follows a long-running conservative effort to bring down the package, which will send billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A 30-second ad featured in the campaign includes footage from the late President Ronald Reagan saying that America is the “leader of the free world, whether we want to be or not … We are the only ones who can preserve the peace.”

Veterans On Duty Chairman Jeremy Hunt, in a statement provided to POLITICO, said: “The leadership displayed by Speaker Johnson and so many national-security-minded Republicans in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, even in the face of opposition in their own party, is noble.”