Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
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Just weeks before the COVID pandemic threw a wrench in global travel, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his wife took an all-expenses paid trip to Israel with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his significant other. But even though Johnson and Jordan filed ethics reports stating that a small nonprofit group would cover all the costs, it’s still unclear how the trip was funded.
The weeklong 2020 visit, which came on the heels of the unveiling of then-President Donald Trump’s controversial Middle East peace plan, captures the strangeness of the alliance between Christian Zionist politicians in the United States and far-right Israelis, a politically expedient partnership that is premised on the literal end of the world.