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.

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.

Senators have about a week before they’re set to vote on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies. Most of them already believe the chances for a bipartisan breakthrough by then are roughly zero.

There’s no clear momentum for any plan that would avoid a lapse in tax credits that could raise insurance premiums for 20 million Americans. House and Senate members involved in the talks said Monday they are still trading ideas, and Congress is in the dark about whether President Donald Trump will roll out an 11th-hour framework for an extension, which could help provide a needed boost.

“Right now, it’s not on a fast track,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said about the chances for a health care deal.

Instead, the most likely outcome is that Senate Democrats put up a bill that has little GOP support for a vote, if any, while Republicans offer a competing bill of their own. And even those partisan proposals remained in flux as lawmakers returned to Washington from a weeklong recess.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has been a key figure in the bipartisan negotiations over a potential extension, said that while she still believes there is time to craft a compromise proposal before the vote, it “remains to be seen” if people are willing to move that quickly.

On a separate track, GOP Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are working behind the scenes on a bill meant to serve as the Republican counterproposal to whatever Democrats offer, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Aside from the unsettled substance of the bill, when it might be unveiled remains in question.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and two other people familiar with internal conference discussions didn’t rule out a vote on a GOP health care plan next week but would not commit to that timing.

“We’ll see what the Dems want to put up,” Thune said Monday. “There’s obviously something that we could put up as a side-by-side, neither of which would probably get 60 [votes to advance], but I think in the end you would like to see if there’s a path forward on something that could merge.”

Some Senate Republicans don’t see the point in forcing a symbolic vote on a GOP counterproposal.

“I don’t want to take a vote just for the heck of it,” said Mullin, who spoke with Trump about health care last week. ”If we’re going to vote, let’s make sure we do something that’s going to be productive.”

Health care is expected to be the dominant topic at both Senate party lunches Tuesday. Democrats will use the closed-door meeting to talk through their options, which include offering a “clean” extension of the ACA subsidies — which few Republicans support — or an extension paired with GOP-favored eligibility restrictions as an olive branch to conservatives.

Senate Republicans are facing their own dilemma — and internal divisions — over which approach to take. Some, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have backed an extension of the subsidies, but a chunk of the Senate GOP conference, to say nothing of their counterparts in the House, want to end the subsidies cold turkey.

Many Republicans, including Cassidy, are focused on alternatives that would structure federal health care subsidies around health savings accounts, an idea that Trump has also endorsed. But lawmakers agree there is virtually no time to develop and implement such a system before the existing subsidies expire, leading some Republicans to favor a temporary extension.

Murkowski said she is “very hopeful” about the bipartisan talks underway but acknowledged the time pressure: “The calendar is not necessarily our friend right now.”

Nor, for now, is Trump, who appears to be sitting on the sidelines even as some congressional Republicans are begging him to get involved and sketch out a health care plan that could help unite and energize GOP factions in the House and Senate.

The president appeared poised to roll out a plan late last month that would extend the ACA subsidies with an income cap and other eligibility restrictions. But the White House scuttled that plan amid a mountain of GOP backlash.

“I think without White House leadership, we’re not going to have a well received product,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has backed a temporary extension. “If we produce something in the Senate, it won’t be well received in the house unless the president works his magic, which he’s very capable of doing.”

Thune said Monday he doesn’t believe the White House is “advocating for advancing anything at the moment,” while making the point that health care talks could continue past next week’s votes. Lawmakers increasingly view Jan. 30 — the next government funding deadline – as the real cutoff for a health care deal.

“I think there’s, you know, groundwork being laid that could end up in actually something getting done,” he said. “I just don’t know if it can get done by next week. That’d be a pretty heavy lift.”

Meanwhile, House Republicans are on a separate track altogether, with party leaders looking to assemble a suite of health care bills from three committees — Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Workforce. Their plan is less about making law, which would require buy-in from Senate Democrats, and more about showing voters that Republicans have plans to address rising health care costs.

Under pressure from unhappy GOP centrists, House leaders are tentatively planning to put legislation on the floor before the chamber’s scheduled Dec. 18 departure for the holiday recess. But that could change. The Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce panels are holding listening sessions with Republican members this week, indicating their plans remain in development.

“We want to get it done as soon as we are ready to get it passed,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview Monday.

Some GOP chairs raised questions and made messaging suggestions on health care during a leadership meeting Monday with Scalise, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private conversation. One of the people added that there’s still “not a lot of direction” from Republican leaders on the topic, and even conservative Republicans are rankled that no firm proposals are being circulated widely inside the conference with just 11 scheduled session days remaining in the year.

“We’re nowhere on health care,” said one senior House Republican who was granted anonymity to candidly describe the situation.

Republican leaders are also under pressure from some House GOP centrists who are threatening to use a discharge petition to effectively force a subsidy extension bill to the floor.

One of those centrists, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, said Monday he has spoken with the White House about a bill he is working on and shopping around to colleagues, which would largely mirror Trump’s unreleased framework.

“It’s one of those things where nobody’s going to love it,” Fitzpatrick said. “But hopefully enough people are okay with it.”

Benjamin Guggenheim and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.