House Republicans spent this week venting about Mike Johnson, questioning the speaker’s hold on his tenuous House majority. Next week, he has to prove he’s capable of governing.

The annual Pentagon policy bill is due on the floor just in time to test Johnson’s ability to command and cajole his conference with must-pass legislation at stake. Already GOP leaders have had to delay release of bill text as they deal with a host of 11th-hour intraparty flare-ups that show just how hard it will be for the speaker to lead ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Johnson is already bruised from a high-profile fight with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of the GOP leadership team, over a surveillance provision she wanted attached to the sprawling defense package. She got her way after publicly accusing the speaker of lying and sandbagging conservatives.

Other deeply divisive issues remain, ranging from cryptocurrency policy to in vitro fertilization, that could threaten to further splinter the House GOP and imperil the typically bipartisan Pentagon bill. The brouhaha threatens to complicate Johnson’s effort to hammer out a still-brewing Republican health care plan he’s promised to unveil by early next week.

“I think there’s a lot of members that are frustrated that we’re not doing the things that we said that we were going to do,” said Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) when asked about Johnson’s leadership. “His response to that would be, we only have a [three] vote majority, but I think if you govern conservatively, Republicans will show up and vote for it.”

Steube, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was “not happy” that Johnson initially excluded Stefanik’s legislation allowing for congressional notification of counterintelligence probes concerning candidates for federal office — part of an annual intelligence authorization legislation that, he said, included “a lot of conservative reforms.” The speaker argued he didn’t know about the measure and that Stefanik’s accusations were “false.”

Top GOP leaders are scrambling to douse the remaining fires and release text of the massive bill as early as Saturday, but it could slip into Sunday, according to four people granted anonymity to comment on internal planning. The negotiations are complicated, they say, because the final product must not only pass the GOP-controlled House but also withstand a possible Senate filibuster — meaning it needs to have Democratic buy-in.

“Getting an agreement right now between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate’s not easy,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said. “But we’re getting close, and we want to get it done.”

Johnson played down the internal turmoil Thursday, saying Republicans “are exactly on the trajectory of where we’ve always planned to be.”

“Steady at the wheel, everybody,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.”

But the pending fights over the Pentagon bill — or the National Defense Authorization Act, as it is formally known — serve as a mini-preview for the turmoil Johnson is likely to face for the remainder of the 119th Congress as he tries to tackle health care, government funding and other flashpoints.

For instance, he is risking a showdown with conservative hard-liners if the final package doesn’t include a provision they favor that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency. Johnson promised House Freedom Caucus members he would include the provision in the defense bill amid a toxic intra-GOP row during the House’s shambolic “crypto week” this summer.

If the so-called central bank digital currency ban is missing, “it is a big deal,” said one House conservative who, like others quoted for this story, was granted anonymity to speak frankly about conference dynamics.

The fate of that provision is currently tied up in talks over another matter — one that highlights how Johnson is facing pressure from another influential corner of the House GOP: his committee chairs.

GOP leaders are taking steps to add a scaled-down version of a Senate housing proposal to the package. But Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) opposes the move and wants to advance a slate of House housing bills through his committee later this month.

Johnson and Hill, normally low-key operators, had an intense conversation on the House floor Wednesday night as House and Senate GOP leaders went back-and-forth, including at the White House’s behest, over how to add some housing affordability measures to the defense bill.

“French is very logical and measured, but he’s very stern in what he believes and what he wants,” said a senior House Republican.

Johnson, a staunch social conservative, is also facing pressure from women and others in the House to add a measure expanding coverage for in vitro fertilization and other fertility services for military families under DOD’s Tricare health system. He’s also caught between big business and China hawks — two major GOP blocs — on whether to add in new restrictions on U.S. investments in China. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who chairs a select committee on China, said he was hopeful the provision would make it in but pointed to opposition from the “financial community.”

The NDAA is “a train that comes around once a year,” he added. “We’re hoping to include it.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday endorsed Trever Nehls, the identical twin of retiring GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, to fill the Texas seat being vacated by his brother.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump lauded Troy Nehls for his congressional career, which he spent as a reliable MAGA ally, and praised his brother for his support of the military, veterans and “LAW AND ORDER,” commending their entire family as “fierce advocates” for the MAGA movement.

“In Congress, Trever will work hard to Keep our now very Secure Border, SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Advance American Energy DOMINANCE, Champion Election Integrity, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” he wrote in the post.

The retiring Nehls has demonstrated staunch loyalty to the president throughout his time in Congress, and the endorsement adds early momentum to his brother’s bid for the seat.

The lawmaker announced last week that he’d be retiring from Congress at the end of his third term representing a southwestern swath of Houston. The departure dealt yet another blow to Texas’ GOP congressional delegation after five other members announced their retirements. Republicans are banking on the state’s redistricting plan to shore up their majority with another five red seats.

Shortly after Troy Nehls announced his retirement, his brother announced on social media that he’d be stepping up to the plate to succeed him.

“District 22 needs a Representative who will follow in Troy’s footsteps and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Trump to defend our conservative values, secure the border, protect our families, and oppose the reckless and radical agenda that Democrats continue to press upon the American people,” he wrote. “I’m ready to take up that fight.”

This isn’t the first time he has followed in his brother’s footsteps. Trever Nehls also succeeded his twin as constable of Fort Bend County in 2013. He later won the Republican nomination to succeed him as the county’s sheriff in 2020 but later lost by 5 points in the general election.

Speaker Mike Johnson is racing to finalize a Republican health care plan in time to present it to his conference at their weekly meeting Tuesday, but his team still needs to decide on major contours of the plan, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations.

GOP leaders are meeting Thursday to nail down what will go in the package, according to the three people. One major decision still to be made is whether to offer up multiple individual bills for floor consideration or to assemble them into one piece of legislation. But top Republicans want to have a GOP alternative to vote on as Democrats hammer them over expiring Obamacare subsidies that will spike premiums for millions of Americans in the new year.

If Johnson and fellow GOP leaders don’t make decisions about the way forward Thursday, one senior House Republican said, “it’s going to be bad.”

The package is likely to be an assemblage of various GOP bills that have been working through House committees that are largely aimed at providing more options for health care coverage outside of the Affordable Care Act framework. One likely to be included would provide for “association health plans” allowing smaller businesses to join together to offer plans rather than going through ACA exchanges. Leaders are also likely to include options for expanding the use of health savings accounts, something President Donald Trump has endorsed but Democrats have generally opposed.

It’s also likely to include bipartisan legislation overhauling the role of pharmacy benefit managers and potentially other bills that could lower prescription drug prices — something Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio advised a group of House Republicans to focus on as Democrats seize on the expiring tax credits.

Johnson said in a brief interview that he and leaders plan to walk House Republicans through the health care plan through this weekend and then circulate the framework early next week. He also confirmed what GOP leaders have said in private — they want to vote on a health care package before the end of the year. But Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who had been coordinating the health care deliberations, wouldn’t commit to that timeline shortly after Johnson spoke.

Party leaders are facing massive pressure from GOP centrists who are assembling their own compromise plans to extend the expiring subsides with new eligibility requirements. But Johnson, Scalise and many House Republicans have no interest in continuing with the Obamacare framework.

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), who coauthored a new plan that would provide a one-year extension of the subsidies that has been endorsed by more than two dozen members in both parties, said “we need to act on this issue.”

“To do nothing is the wrong answer,” she said.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who is assembling a separate compromise bill that would include a longer subsidy extension, said his party’s leaders were not going down a path that will prevent a spike in American’s health care costs.

“Is it a Republican-only solution? That’s not a serious solution,” he said. “The million-dollar question is, is it bipartisan or not?”