Rep. Elise Stefanik is taking aim directly at Speaker Mike Johnson over signals a provision she has championed won’t be included in the annual defense policy bill the House wants to pass next week — marking a notable and unusual split inside the House GOP leadership team.

Stefanik, a New York Republican who serves as a member of Johnson’s leadership team, said in a social media post Tuesday morning she would help tank the National Defense Authorization Act if it doesn’t incorporate her provision that would require the FBI to notify Congress when it opens investigations into candidates running for federal office.

“This is an easy one,” the New York Republican posted on social media Tuesday morning. “This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.”

Stefanik also blamed Johnson for the expected omission.

“[T]he Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more,” she wrote on X. “He is siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.”

Stefanik’s proposal, which would require the public disclosure of all “FBI counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office,” is designed to combat what many Republicans consider politically motivated investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 election and former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the election in 2020.

Asked about whether he thwarted the provision’s inclusion in the NDAA, Johnson said Stefanik’s retelling of events is “false.” He said he supported the provision and that there could still be a path for its passage in some other legislative vehicle.

“I don’t exactly know why Elise just won’t call me,” he said, recalling that he told his colleague over text, “What are you talking about? This hasn’t even made it to my level.”

Johnson explained the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, who he suspected have jurisdiction over this issue, had not agreed to include the language, leading to the provision being dropped from the defense bill. A spokesperson for Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary panel, deferred to Johnson’s explanation.

Stefanik quickly responded in another post on X, “Just more lies from the Speaker,” while insisting the Intelligence Committee, on which Stefanik sits, has jurisdiction over her provision.

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been negotiating the NDAA for weeks and could roll out a compromise package as soon as Thursday; Stefanik said in her social media post that she got early details of that package in an Intelligence Committee briefing.

The narrow GOP majority in the House means that Johnson can barely afford to lose any Republican support if Democrats reject the legislation en masse, but it’s far from guaranteed Stefanik’s opposition will doom the NDAA on its own.

While most Democrats opposed the hard-right version of the Pentagon bill the House passed in September, more Democrats might come on board to support a compromise measure and make up for a shortfall of votes on the Republican side of the aisle. The NDAA is typically a broadly bipartisan package.

Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

House GOP leaders are trying to steady their restive conference as they seek to avert disaster in a Tennessee special election for a ruby-red GOP-controlled seat on Tuesday night.

NRCC Chair Richard Hudson told House Republicans in their closed-door meeting Tuesday morning that Republican Matt Van Epps will win the race. But he also said members need to remember special elections are special, according to four people in the room, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

National Republicans have had to intervene to attempt to rescue Van Epps from a potential defeat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, a conservative stronghold President Donald Trump won by more than 20 points.

The race between Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn has attracted millions in outside spending from both sides, despite the typically uncompetitive nature of the district.

Republicans in the room for Hudson’s remarks Tuesday morning, however, did not feel much better about the state of the conference and the special election ahead of next year’s midterms.

“It was not overly comforting,” one House Republican who attended the meeting said, noting that some GOP members quietly glanced over at each other as the North Carolina congressman argued a win is a win.

Another House Republican predicted the GOP conference would spend some time reeling from the fallout of the race, given that it shouldn’t have been competitive in the first place.

“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic and the conference would “explode,” the Republican added.

Senators will be voting on health care in about a week. Their chances of success are not good.

The most likely outcome: two failed votes on competing partisan proposals and no certain solution to the Affordable Care Act subsidy cliff.

But that doesn’t mean all is said and done. Senate Republicans and Democrats head into their respective party lunches Tuesday with lots of competing options to discuss. And even after the likely-to-fail Senate votes, talks will continue — with many lawmakers now viewing the Jan. 30 government funding deadline as the real drop-dead date.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there’s “groundwork being laid that could end up in actually something getting done.”

Here are the multiple tracks to keep an eye on:

— The Senate Democratic proposal: Expect Democrats to discuss Tuesday what they plan to offer up next week. Most likely is a “clean” extension of the ACA subsidies that few Republicans support, though they could offer GOP-favored eligibility restrictions as an olive branch to conservatives.

— The Senate GOP alternative: Most Republicans expect a “side-by-side” vote with a GOP alternative to the Democratic bill. GOP Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are preparing that counterproposal, though it’s unclear what that might include or when it would be introduced.

— The House GOP framework: House leaders have tasked three committees with assembling a package of bills which they are tentatively looking to put on the floor before the chamber’s scheduled Dec. 18 departure for the holiday recess. Don’t expect this to get any Democratic buy-in.

— The House centrists’ plan: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told Blue Light News Monday he has talked with the White House about a bill he is working on and shopping with likeminded moderates that would largely mirror Donald Trump’s unreleased framework: “It’s one of those things where nobody’s going to love it. But hopefully enough people are okay with it.”

— The Senate bipartisan talks: If a passable product is ever going to emerge, it’s probably coming out of this effort dating back to before the government shutdown involving the likes of Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). They are looking to forge compromise on an extension of the subsidies, but there’s not much time left.

“The calendar is not necessarily our friend right now,” Murkowski said in a brief interview.

What else we’re watching:   

— Special election fight in Tennessee: Speaker Mike Johnson spent valuable time Monday boosting a Republican candidate in Tuesday’s Tennessee special election as the GOP hopes to shore up its slim House majority. Polling shows Republican Matt Van Epps leading Democrat Aftyn Behn by only single-digit margins, catching the attention of the president and national Republicans as they scramble to hang onto what should be a deep-red district.

— Children’s internet safety hearing: A partisan fight is brewing over whether to include state AI laws in legislation to protect kids’ safety online. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday on the issue, fulfilling a promise made by committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) to advance kids’ safety legislation.

— NDAA text coming Thursday: House Armed Services plans to release text for the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Monday night. Rogers said he believes a moratorium on state AI regulation will not make it into the final version of the NDAA, despite an effort from Trump and some GOP leaders to include the language.

Jordain Carney, Calen Razor, Meredith Lee Hill, Katherine Long and Alfred Ng contributed to this report.