With Senate negotiators expected to unveil their elusive bipartisan border deal any day now — and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer floating a vote on the White House’s $106 billion supplemental as soon as next week — the watercooler chatter on Capitol Hill has turned to one elephant-sized question: How the hell do you get this thing past the Republican House?

Speaker Mike Johnson is under tremendous pressure from former President Donald Trump and other conservatives not to give President Joe Biden a win on border security — an issue that has plagued him in the polls — ahead of the 2024 election. And members including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are openly threatening to oust the Louisiana Republican if he allows a new tranche of Ukraine aid through the House.

But given the stakes in Ukraine and the political fallout from the migrant crisis, some Democrats are considering a once almost unthinkable idea to land the plane: trading a border deal for protecting Johnson’s gavel.

Several Democrats — including House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and border Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) — said yesterday that if Johnson puts the Senate deal on the floor, some in their party would likely step in to make sure he holds on as speaker.

“Our job is not to save Johnson, but I think it would be a mighty pity, if he did the right thing … for us not to........

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