Congress
Shutdown chances rise as Johnson defers to Trump on a spending plan
Speaker Mike Johnson is bending to President-elect Donald Trump’s demands in his latest bid to avoid a government shutdown in less than 36 hours and help save his job. GOP lawmakers are skeptical he can pull it off.
There’s no final plan yet, as the Lousiana Republican continues to huddle in his office on Thursday with a rotating cross-section of his conference, including members of his leadership team, House Freedom Caucus lawmakers and others. The speaker is assessing various options and running them by Trump world to ensure he has the incoming president’s buy-in before moving forward on another plan, after Trump publicly trashed the spending bill Wednesday and suddenly demanded that lawmakers raise the debt ceiling as well.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who has been in and out of Johnson’s office all day, has told a swarm of reporters roughly two dozen times that the situation is “fluid.” By early afternoon he had switched his descriptive of the talks to “moving.” The head of the GOP’s campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), was asked if the House would vote on a spending plan Thursday and replied: “I guess we’ll find out.”
The scramble underscores Johnson’s reality, not just now but in the coming months: Nearly any plan he puts forward will spark grumbling, if not an outright rebellion, from his ranks. With a spending deal, he will almost certainly need to get Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown deadline Friday night, since some conservatives are unlikely to support the plan regardless. That problem came up repeatedly in a meeting of more mainstream GOP members on Thursday.
“It was mostly about frustration with one group, who’s gonna demand what’s in and out of this bill, and then still vote against it,” said one House Republican who was in the meeting, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Johnson also needs to keep Trump happy, and the incoming president is demanding that the speaker not cede to Democratic demands. A handful of members on the right flank are publicly calling for Johnson to just let funding lapse and allow a government shutdown before Christmas. Trump has also expressed he’s open to the idea.
But his last-minute demands are also sowing discontent with other lawmakers. One House GOP lawmaker was overheard by a Blue Light News reporter complaining to another member about Trump’s last-minute demands.
“If [Trump] wants to do this … he needs to show up,” said the House Republican. “This is a deeply unserious party right now.”
Johnson can only afford to lose three Republicans on any partisan proposal he puts forward — a bar he’s been unable to clear on funding fights before. Some of his members are stating the obvious: Even if Republicans manage to pass it without Democratic help in the House, it will have to clear the Democratic-controlled Senate and get signed by President Joe Biden.
“If you don’t take pretty close to what we’ve got right now, I just don’t know how it gets through the Senate,” said Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), referring to Johnson’s initial three-month funding bill that dozens of House Republicans vowed to oppose.
The hurdles with raising the debt ceiling are two-fold. Democrats are against the idea and trying to pressure Johnson to stick to their original deal. Meanwhile, Trump’s push to raise — or completely eliminate — the debt limit doesn’t square with conservatives’ long-held demand for cuts to government funding and reining in spending.
“Republicans cannot raise the debt ceiling without massive spending cuts and significant structural reforms,” outgoing Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) wrote on X.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) repeatedly declined to comment as he left meetings in Johnson’s office on Thursday. But he hinted at his previous positions of opposing clean debt ceiling suspensions or hikes, telling reporters that “everybody knows how I feel about a debt ceiling increase.” And Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he could not support a short-term funding bill that included a clean debt hike or suspension.
Others shrugged off the concerns of raising the debt limit, arguing it hasn’t done much to rein in spending at all.
“It hasn’t been very effective in dealing with constraining the debt,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “We knew we were going to have to address the debt limit at some point. President Trump just wants it done now, rather than on his watch. And I can understand why.”
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) told reporters after a meeting in Johnson’s office that abolishing the debt limit is “not part of the conversation.” But, she added, Trump has said “he wants to make sure that we are addressing the debt ceiling in addition to the continuing resolution and the spending priorities.”
“Still negotiating,” she added, saying that Republicans are having a “robust discussion.”
The lack of a clear path forward has prompted Republicans to start preparing for the unseemly idea of a shutdown over the Christmas holiday. A growing number of GOP lawmakers are even publicly calling for the government to shut down until next year, with some floating the party could keep it shuttered until Trump’s inauguration. That would mean the construction to build Trump’s inauguration platform outside the Capitol and other surroundings would stall, among various other issues.
“We can reset federal government appropriations after Trump is sworn in. Shut it down,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) tweeted.
Meanwhile, Trump isn’t being subtle: how Johnson handles this will impact if he can become speaker in a Jan. 3 vote. Early Thursday, Trump told Fox News Digital that if the GOP leader “gets rid of all of the traps being set by the Democrats, which will economically and, in other ways, destroy our country, he will easily remain speaker.” He also implied the Louisiana Republican needs to toughen up.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have started floating other names to replace him, including those who had backed Johnson for speaker as recently as last week.
“I’d be open to supporting Elon Musk for Speaker of the House. DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency. The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted, just two weeks after telling Blue Light News she will back Johnson on the House floor.
Johnson has largely avoided talking to the press over the past 24 hours amid his dust-up with Trump.
Nicholas Wu contributed reporting.
Republicans have had to defer many of their legislative dreams, hoping the post-election release of political pressure could set up a productive “lame duck” session before a new Congress is seated.
Fat chance, many GOP lawmakers now say.
Beyond the uncertainties surrounding the midterms and a potential transition of power on Capitol Hill, members will return to Washington facing a considerable list of must-pass bipartisan bills but also potentially messy internal leadership fights, a foul national mood and a mere 24 legislative days to get anything done.
One thing on Republicans’ minds is whether some of their members even come back to vote.
“The question becomes: Who shows up for work after the elections?” Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) said in an interview. “Attendance is an issue right now.”
There are some items, Scott added, that “ultimately … have to get done.” Those include an extension of government funding past Dec. 11 and the annual Pentagon policy bill. Major pieces of legislation to reauthorize farm, transportation and surveillance programs are also on deck. All are loaded with potential partisan flashpoints, however, and won’t be legislative chip shots.
Then there are pending bipartisan bills overhauling energy permitting and the college sports industry that many members are itching to get done this year. But many lawmakers fear those could easily get left behind — especially if Democrats can win control of either chamber and seek greater influence on the final products.
“What do you think?” an exasperated Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about the prospect for bipartisan accomplishments in the lame duck. “I mean, why? If you think about it, if Democrats win the House, why would they?”
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who like Tillis is leaving Congress at the end of the year, echoed the belief that Democrats would “want to put their fingerprints more on things before they pass” in a majority-flips scenario.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested as much in a recent interview: “The lame duck will be quite different if we win the Senate,” he said. “Same thing if they win the House, and same thing if we win both or neither.”
Then there are partisan GOP priorities that some Republicans are hoping to ram through in the final weeks of the year — especially if the party’s governing trifecta is about to end — such as enacting hundreds of millions of dollars in new defense funding as well as new voting restrictions.
While GOP leaders are leaving the door open to attempting to pass another bill through the party-line reconciliation process, there are no signs they are closer to having the necessary votes than they were this summer.
While some Republicans believe that losing a chamber would jump-start that process, others privately believe the exact opposite would happen, according to three GOP aides granted anonymity to speak candidly. There will be little incentive for lawmakers who just lost their seats — “free-range chickens,” some call them — to grind out a final legislative win, if they come back at all.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune last month admitted he is facing mathematical realities that make passing another reconciliation bill “difficult” even in a lame-duck session.
That likely spells doom for another GOP wish being bandied about for the post-midterms session: clearing a debt-limit increase through the end of President Donald Trump’s term. Thune has acknowledged that as a possibility multiple times since July, but several GOP senators are skeptical.
“I don’t like that idea,” said retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who added she had to “hold my nose” in voting for the last debt-ceiling lift.
But other GOP leaders are professing more optimism about the post-midterm environment to overcome some long-standing roadblocks.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an interview called it “an opportunity for everybody to focus on getting policy done because the election will be over.”
“I hope we get back to that, because it needs to happen,” he said.
But each piece of legislation still in limbo is riddled with thorny policy disputes. Senate Democrats blocked the defense bill amid a standoff over the Iran war and have objected to giving Trump back some surveillance powers. The farm bill, meanwhile, is mired in a fight over food assistance.
Thune has teed up an initial vote on the bipartisan permittingdeal, but Democrats continue to doubt whether Trump will live up to GOP negotiators’ clean energy commitments — and they could push for more concessions if they prevail in the midterms.
Even the must-do government funding bill is a potential minefield, with lawmakers widely expecting a punt until deeper into the holidays or even next year.
Democrats are fuming over the Trump administration’s recent decision to block roughly $1 billion in congressionally approved funding, which could complicate the dealmaking ahead of the deadline. That could make passage of the 12 annual spending bills, or a combined full-year “omnibus” package, impossible.
“I just don’t think we’ll get them done by the 11th,” Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a senior GOP appropriator, said about the full-year bills. He predicted another short-term punt.
Beyond the policy disputes, there’s a host of other distractions leaders of both parties will be dealing with once they return to session Nov. 9.
Speaker Mike Johnson will immediately have to deal with a House vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced by outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). With the Iran war weighing heavily on voters’ views of the GOP, some Republicans with an eye on the next election could decide to break ranks.
And though the elections will be over outside the Capitol, internal politicking could continue for weeks in both chambers.
A Democratic flip of the House could spark a potentially chaotic cascade of GOP leadership elections, especially with Johnson giving mixed signals about his intentions in that scenario. He broached the possibility he might not remain atop his conference in a Fox News interview last week, then said in a CBS News interview published Monday that he expected “my colleagues would ask me to continue leading this conference” even after a loss.
Thune says he is running again for GOP leader regardless of the election outcome, and no other senator has signaled they will challenge him. That hasn’t stopped some conservatives, in and out of the chamber, from questioning whether Trump will blame him if the majority is lost.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said the lame duck to-do list could ultimately come down to vibes.
“I know what they would like us to do and all that,” Kennedy said. “But you have no idea what the mood is going to be.”
President Donald Trump announced the next chief for the White House’s Capitol Hill strategy on Saturday night, picking Katie Bailey, a former Republican Hill staffer.
Bailey will replace James Braid in the role of director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, which oversees nominations and confirmations of Cabinet roles, relationships on Capitol Hill and the White House’s legislative priorities. Braid left the job in September.
Bailey has served as deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs since the beginning of the summer. She formerly worked for Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana and former Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and served in roles on multiple committees.
Trump commended Bailey for assisting with the confirmations of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, saying she has “already delivered strong results.”
“After previously working on Capitol Hill, Katie understands how the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government can most effectively work together to achieve Great Success for the American People,” the president wrote in a social media post Saturday night.
Bailey takes over the role ahead of the midterm elections, which could alter the power dynamics in Washington substantially if Democrats seize control of either chamber of Congress. The result, which the White House has begun preparing for, could include congressional subpoenas, depositions and investigations, as happened during the latter half of Trump’s first term in office, when Democrats flipped the House.
Trump’s approval continues to sag amid soaring gas and diesel prices driven by the war with Iran, leaving Democrats bullish that the map will continue to grow for them.
SYRACUSE, New York — President Donald Trump came to New York on Friday to help a Republican win an uphill race for governor. But his visit was also a reminder of the complicated role he plays in his party’s fight to keep control of Congress.
Trump rallied alongside GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, calling on New Yorkers to fire Gov. Kathy Hochul and, referring to the state attorney general, “her totally corrupt sidekick, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.”
“Your city and state are dirty, filthy places, and everybody wants to leave,” he told some 5,000 attendees at a convention center in downtown Syracuse — which, he noted, was “a short distance from the beautiful shores of Lake America.”
“You gotta get your act together, and I tell you what, Bruce Blakeman will get your act together,” Trump said.
For Republicans, the president’s appearance underscored a political dilemma that extends beyond New York: Even as Trump increasingly appears to be a drag on their ticket, they need his loyal supporters to energize their base. While voters have soured on the president’s handling of the economy and costs, he remains a potent force in turning out MAGA voters — even in an otherwise Democratic-dominated state.
“The targeting of where the president goes is not a random exercise,” Marist University pollster Lee Miringoff said. “They’re looking to stir the base without stirring the opposition. They’re picking and choosing, that’s not uncommon. For him to come to New York to help the turnout upstate is a positive for the Republicans and his base.”
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, hasn’t distanced himself from the president — nor have most of the top officials in New York’s GOP. Nearly every Republican running a competitive congressional race in this half of the state came to Friday’s rally, eager to make their presence known.
“I’m always happy to be with the president,” said Anthony Constantino, who’s running in a nearby red district that’s inched into toss-up territory. “He’s the leader of the free world, and I’m excited to have a great relation with him.”
Some GOP operatives, however, have quietly grumbled that their candidates need to start creating some distance from the president. Republicans from other parts of the state like Rep. Mike Lawler decided that campaigning in their districts was more valuable than trekking to be seen with Trump — as did several down-ballot candidates in Central New York. Democrats, notably, have been just as eager to highlight the visit.
“This is supposed to be a swing district. And the feedback I get is that the president is very unpopular,” said Democratic Rep. John Mannion, who represents Syracuse and the surrounding Central New York area. “He still certainly will have his core base of supporters, but I do think he’s lost support here compared to what he had around the 2024 election.”
Blakeman, for his part, isn’t worried about Trump’s drop in popularity.
“Kathy Hochul should be worried about her drop in popularity,” he said before taking the stage in Syracuse. “She’s the most unpopular governor in the history of the state of New York.”
Trump’s visit came against the backdrop of a darkening political environment for New York Republicans.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a man in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, stirring fresh condemnation of Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has a surprisingly warm relationship with the president, called on him to cease all ICE activity in the five boroughs. Hochul stressed that the shooting took place with a five-year-old child present and demanded that federal authorities “provide answers.”
Immigration is one of several areas where Blakeman has hewed close to the Trump wing of the party throughout his campaign.
“I’m outraged with Kathy Hochul for taking sides with somebody who was a convicted felon, someone who was an alleged drug dealer, a gang member,” he said Friday about the shooting in Manhattan.
While Trump’s speech repeatedly careened back to the rhetoric one could expect from any of his rallies — boasts about the stock market, complaints about ‘Dumocrats’ — he did manage to seamlessly blend almost all of Blakeman’s oft-used talking points into his stump speech.
“Since Hochul took office, she’s raised your utility rates 48 times, and energy prices in New York have skyrocketed 100 percent,” Trump said. “If Bruce Blakeman gets in, he will cut your electric bills by 70, 80, 90 percent.”
The climate outside of deep blue New York City is also turning increasingly hostile to the GOP. Constantino, who’s running to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik in upstate New York, trails his Democratic foe Blake Gendebien by 4 points, a Siena Research Institute survey released Friday morning found. A Blue Light News poll showed that nationally one in four Trump voters believe Republican candidates should break from the president in order to win in November.
The wisdom of appearing with Trump has been debated by Republicans throughout the country at a time when gas prices are high and a foreign war drags on. And New York Democrats aren’t viewing the presidential visit as a concern.
Much of Hochul’s messaging this year has focused on making sure New Yorkers know Blakeman and Trump are friends. Her most-aired TV commercial features a puppeteer saying one Republican would do the other’s bidding.
“Puppets are my life. You tell them what to say, they say it,” the narrator says. “But that’s not what you want in a governor.”
Earlier in the day during an MSNOW interview, Hochul dismissed the rally.
“It’s obviously a very political event,” she said. “It seems like a last-ditch effort to breathe some life into a campaign that’s on life support.”
Despite his low approval ratings with voters, Trump’s visit stands to light up a Republican base that Blakeman will need to turn out next month to help him defeat Hochul.
Polling has shown the governor leading the GOP nominee by as much as 18 points in this deep blue state. Yet some Trump supporters maintain the president can help generate much-needed enthusiasm for Blakeman, especially in areas of upstate New York where the Long Island native is not well known.
“We actually have the ability to win these elections, but I just don’t see the enthusiasm out there,” Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar said. “Hochul has won the day as far as being a terrible governor, but now we’ve got to get our people out to vote.”
Winning is still a tall order for Blakeman — especially in a tough national political environment where polls show GOP candidates in red states like Texas, Ohio and Kansas struggling against Democratic challengers.
Republicans have not won statewide in New York since George Pataki secured a third term in 2002. Since then, the GOP has lost all levers of statewide power, and Trump’s tariffs as well as his decision to launch a war in Iran have not helped him fulfill his campaign pledge of addressing voters’ cost concerns.
The president’s political woes aren’t going unnoticed.
Privately, Republican operatives grumbled that the president’s visit put swing seat candidates in an uncomfortable spot.
“There’s a lot of commiserating between folks within the party structure — why is this happening? Why is he doing this?” said one Republican operative who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the dynamic. “Then you’ve got the blind loyalists who say, ‘Yay Trump’s coming’ — people who are too politically dumb to understand the ramifications of it.”
Yet the head of the Republican party kept his message very much in line with Hochul’s.
“Please pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump told Central New Yorkers.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words