That personal dilemma likely explains months of delay that undoubtedly cost Ukrainian lives and has helped Russia make battlefield gains.
Loading
As a rank-and-file member of the House of Representatives, Johnson joined right-wing colleagues in opposing Ukraine aid.
And shortly after becoming House speaker in October, he vowed not to allow Ukraine aid to come to a vote until his party’s demands for harsh measures to protect America’s southern border were met.
He stuck to that decision even after Volodymyr Zelensky personally explained the desperation of the situation at a meeting in Washington in December.
In February, Republicans rejected a painstakingly negotiated deal to take account of those concerns after Donald Trump criticised it.
The consensus among well-connected observers, including top officials in allied governments, was that Trump had ordered and bullied Republicans to block aid for his own political ends.
But Johnson, who had been present in classified intelligence briefings, was privately coming to terms with the gravity of the situation.
“All of a sudden he’s realising that the world depends on this,” McCaul told The New York Times.
The key meeting appears to have come in the Oval Office in February, when Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, made clear that failure to pass aid could doom Ukraine.
Johnson, a firm Christian, was struck by stories of the devastation unleashed by Russia.
Conversations with Zelensky, who phoned Johnson again in March to explain why a “quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital”, also appear to have made an impression.
Destruction from a Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, at the weekend.Credit: AP
“I really do believe the intel, and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said when a reporter asked him on Wednesday why he was suddenly willing to risk his job.
“I believe that Xi, and Vladimir Putin, and Iran really are an Axis of Evil, I think they are in co-ordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed, I think he might go to the Balkans next, I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies.”
There was also, he admitted, a personal consideration. One of Johnson’s sons is due to enrol in the US naval academy this autumn.
Loading
“This is a live-fire exercise for me, as it is for so many American families,” he said. “This is not a game, this is not a joke.”
The Telegraph, London
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.