Congress
Former Freedom Caucus chair on Johnson: ‘I’m going to keep my options open’
Rep. Scott Perry said Thursday that he’s not committing to voting for Mike Johnson for speaker, adding a former Freedom Caucus chair to the conservative crowd sowing doubt over Johnson’s prospects to retake the gavel.
“I think that Mike has done an admirable job under tough conditions, but I’m going to keep my options open,” Perry (R-Pa.) said Friday morning on Fox Business. “I want to have a conversation with Mike.”
Perry’s comments come after current HFC Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said Thursday that Republicans need to consider if current leadership “is what we need” going into unified GOP government next year, adding that he is “undecided” on who should be in House leadership come January.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the first Republican to promise that he’ll vote against Johnson for speaker, pledging to vote for someone else. But Harris, Perry and Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) all publicly voicing indecision could spell trouble for Johnson.
The House will vote to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, just one week from Friday, and with Republicans’ razor-thin margin, any defections could put Johnson’s speakership in jeopardy. Republicans are expected to have a 219-215 majority on Jan. 3, and Johnson can only afford to have one Republican vote against him.
The speaker is taking heat from his conference’s right flank over his handling of the stopgap funding bill to keep the government funded until mid-March. There is specific dissatisfaction over federal spending and lack of offsets.
There is one voice that Perry says could end speculation and indecision over the speakership: President-elect Donald Trump.
“We’ve just got to make sure that we get the best person for the job under the circumstances,” Perry said. “And I’ll tell you the one that might be able to make the difference is, quite honestly, President Trump. Whoever the president backs is likely to be the speaker, regardless.”
And Perry added his top priority is ensuring that Congress can deliver on the incoming Trump administration’s agenda.
“These members are signaling that they don’t know that they have the confidence in Mike to be able to do that based on past performance,” said Perry.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned plans to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general Thursday, according to a committee spokesperson.
The decision comes as Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) continue to push the Justice Department to revise a controversial settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS. A “no” vote from either senator would effectively sink Blanche’s nomination.
The two senators met Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) but did not announce any breakthrough.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement. Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report [Blanche], who is highly qualified for the job.”
The meeting could still be rescheduled if Cornyn and Tillis are placated, but any delay threatens Senate GOP leaders’ plans to confirm Blanche before the chamber adjourns for its summer recess next week.
White House officials urged Senate Republicans on Wednesday to quickly adopt a spending blueprint for a narrowly focused party-line spending bill, but they struggled to quash GOP skepticism about the administration’s vision.
White House budget director Russ Vought stressed during the private lunch meeting with Senate Republicans that the next package passed under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process should include only President Donald Trump’s most urgent priorities — particularly defense spending and aid for farmers.
Vought said Republicans should not seek to cut spending or otherwise offset the deficit impact of the tens of billions of dollars the Trump administration wants enacted, nor should they attempt to raise the debt limit.
“It should be tight,” he told reporters as he exited the lunch. “It should be for the defense needs that we need now, for the [agriculture] needs that we need now. And to get this as straight a shot to the president’s desk as possible.”
That approach comports with the $95 billion framework the House adopted last week before lawmakers there left Washington for their summer recess. But Vought and other White House officials faced pushback in the room Wednesday on a variety of issues.
Majority Leader John Thune warned afterward that he doesn’t believe he has the votes for the narrow budget resolution the Trump administration is contemplating. He said there was a disconnect between the narrow bill the White House is seeking and the political challenges it creates.
Those challenges revolve around “vote-a-rama” — a feature of the reconciliation process that allows Democrats to force a series of amendment votes that could put GOP senators in tough spots. The more committees the budget resolution “instructs” to deliver legislation, the more opportunities Democrats will have to create political mischief for Republicans.
“Some of the things that are contemplated being done in this reconciliation bill, or in this budget resolution legislation, are things that could implicate a number of committees,” Thune said. “Obviously that creates an uphill challenge in terms of trying to ensure that you have 50” votes.
Senators also aired concerns about Trump’s obsessive focus on the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. The House blueprint contemplates including parts of that bill in the party-line package.
But Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said doing so in the Senate could involve more committees — and open up the range of issues Democrats would be able to force politically troublesome votes on.
“I think we all hate vote-a-rama,” Johnson added. “Some people are more sensitive to the kind of votes they have to take.”
In another complication, some Senate defense hawks want more military spending than the $60 billion House Republicans laid out in their own framework. Johnson said he and other Republicans expect to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later Wednesday to discuss the Pentagon’s needs.
But other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), aren’t convinced it’s a good idea to pursue another party-line bill at all.
“It used to be we would try to figure out how we worked through some challenging problems with the minority,” she said.
Murkowski added that the Trump administration’s strategy of relying on the reconciliation process to avoid bipartisan negotiations only works if a majority of Republican senators go along with the plan.
“It’s not always guaranteed that you get 50” votes, she said.
Vought, meanwhile, leaned on the potential for yet another party-line reconciliation package to be enacted after the midterm elections as another vehicle to deliver key priorities. That could include a debt limit increase, he said, along with yet another tranche of defense cash to meet Trump’s $1.5 trillion goal for annual military spending.
The various legislative vehicles left some GOP senators scratching their hands as they left the lunch.
Asked if he had gotten clarity from Vought & Co., Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said, “‘Not really’ is the short answer.”
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Wednesday he is again postponing a highly anticipated markup of artificial intelligence bills planned for next week.
Instead, the Texas Republican said in an interview Wednesday, the panel will only take up bills focused on kids’ online safety.
Cruz said senators could not strike a deal on AI legislation in time for the committee to vote next week.
“We are going to do a markup on kids’ safety next week,” Cruz told Blue Light News. “We have moved the broader AI markup to September. … It’s our intention still to mark those up, but it is taking longer to get bipartisan agreement.”
Cruz said the committee would mark up the Kids Online Safety Act, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), along with other measures.
Under the panel’s rules, the chair must publish an agenda a week in advance. The committee did not immediately respond to a question about exactly which bills would be on the docket.
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