Speaker Kevin McCarthy sent his House members home for the week without a clear plan to avoid a looming government shutdown after hardliners in the Republican conference once again scuttled his spending plans, delivering an embarrassing floor defeat for GOP leadership for the second time this week.
The Republican leader slammed his far-right flank for wanting to “burn the place down,” after conservatives dramatically bucked McCarthy and GOP leadership on a procedural vote over a Pentagon funding bill, throwing the House into total paralysis. And now, members are not set to return to session until Tuesday as the possibility of a shutdown at the end of next week appears ever more likely.
“It’s frustrating in the sense that I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters.
All he has to do is work with the Democrats. That’s it. He’s just not going to do it because he is clawing on to his speakership for dear life.
And even there, he could hold onto the speakership by working with Democrats. If he throws the Democrats a few bones in exchange for them voting to keep McCarthy in any speakership vote, then the power of the Freedom Caucus would be blunted.
But silly me, the obvious path forward is really to keep doing the same thing and hope that the Freedom Caucus will become reasonable. Surely, that will work perfectly, right?
Mmm… he knows that everyone on the other side of the aisle fucking hates him.
That said, considering how often and consistently Republicans have outright lied to their colleagues and pulled bait-and-switch bullshit, maybe it’s time to just say they’ll back him for speaker after the vote, and then just… vote for Jeffries instead.
Of course, it doesn’t help that McCarthy pushed for a Biden impeachment on the grounds of “the Freedom Caucus wants this even though there’s zero evidence” only for the Freedom Caucus to decide that wasn’t enough and they wanted more.
The Freedom Caucus are acting like spoiled kids. “I got you the new toy you wanted so now you’ll act nice to mommy and daddy, right?” “NO! I now want these two other toys! Get me them NOW!”
“Sent home for the week” fuckin jackasses. Keep working on it until it’s done, these short work schedules for our representatives are dumb as all hell
Say what you want about Pelosi, but she would keep on working till they got the job done. McCarthy is speaker in name only.
McCarthy is speaker in name only.
Which is fitting when you consider he never wanted to do the job in the first place. He only ever wanted the title.
Seriously. Lock them fucking in until they figure the shit out if they haven’t gotten the votes within 3 weeks of the deadline.
Republicans are clowns. They don’t want to do their jobs so bad that they’re obstructing each other now. McCarthy is bad enough. These “hardliners” are lower than dogshit.
He got here by giving crazy people what they want and now he’s confused as to why crazy people aren’t being reasonable? Welp, these are your people, some might say the fact that you don’t want to burn it all down just makes you a RINO.
Oh man that sucks bro yikes wow oh man…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
House Republican leaders are sending members home for the week amid deep divisions over funding the government ahead of the rapidly-approaching September 30 deadline, according to multiple GOP sources.
House Republican leaders are running out of options after conservative hardliners sunk a Pentagon bill from advancing on Thursday and the fate of a GOP effort to keep the government funded remains uncertain.
The procedural vote’s failure marks yet another blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he faces a major leadership test and threats over his ouster and Congress inches ever closer to a potential shutdown at the end of next week.
Days of negotiations have yielded a few apparent breakthroughs, but McCarthy’s Republican opponents have been quick to throw cold water on progress and openly defy the speaker’s calls for unity.
Late Wednesday evening, McCarthy briefed his conference behind closed doors on a new plan to keep the government open – paired with deeper spending cuts and new border security measures – in an attempt to win over wary members on his right flank.
As part of the deal, Republicans told CNN on Wednesday night that they have the votes to move forward on the yearlong Pentagon spending bill that five conservative hardliners scuttled just Tuesday, with Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Ken Buck of Colorado indicating they will flip to a yes on the rule and will vote to advance the Department of Defense bill Thursday after the speaker came down to the spending levels that Norman had been demanding.
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