Johnson defies right flank, saying bipartisan spending plan ‘remains’

Johnson defies right flank, saying bipartisan spending plan ‘remains’

Speaker Mike Johnson defied his right flank Friday morning, suggesting that he would maintain a bipartisan spending deal that they despise.

Delivering a written statement to reporters, Johnson nodded to conservative anger about the agreement that he negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But he added that “our top line agreement remains.”

“We are getting our next steps together and we are working toward a robust appropriations process,” Johnson said. He declined to answer further questions.

Conservatives have criticized the speaker both publicly and privately over the deal this week, calling on him to negotiate a new agreement with steeper funding cuts. That fury from his right flank grew Friday morning, with another lawmaker raising the idea of booting Johnson from the speakership.

“That is a failing, losing strategy and I will never support it. I’ll fight it as much as possible. Even if I have to go so far to vacate the chair. And there’s others that agree with me,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters after a meeting with Johnson earlier Friday, referring to the process that would remove a speaker. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has also floated the idea.

Just an hour before his announcement, Johnson met with a group comprised of mostly House GOP centrists, who emphasized that a government shutdown would be damaging to members fighting for reelection in battleground districts. Some also argued that reneging on his bipartisan budget deal with congressional leaders hurt his brand moving forward, according to a GOP lawmaker who was in the room, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal discussions.

That Republican centrist said they warned Johnson that he would look “weak” if he succumbed to the demands of his right wing.

“We’ve got to govern. … And, by the way, I think 90 or 95 percent of us are fully in sync on this,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is in a district President Joe Biden won in 2020.

Asked about the ouster threat, Bacon warned that it was inescapable given the thin majority. But he added of conservatives’ warnings: “Most of us can’t stand any of this stuff. I would say the majority of the majority we’re angry about this shit. We’re tired of it.”

Conservatives had met with the GOP leader earlier this week, asking him to abandon the bipartisan deal and work out new spending terms with them. That plan would have raised the odds of a partial government shutdown — since the Democratic-controlled Senate would almost certainly reject it — which is set to kick in on Jan. 20. Johnson hasn’t addressed if he will try to pass a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, which will be necessary to avoid a partial shutdown. Schumer has indicated that the Senate will vote on such legislation next week.

Johnson’s statement follows a chaotic 24 hours of speculation about whether he would back out of the bipartisan agreement he announced with other congressional leaders on Sunday. Members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies emerged from his office Thursday claiming that they were renegotiating the deal.

Conservatives have fumed that the agreement doesn’t do enough to cut spending — it’s almost identical to the funding agreement former Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden last year — or enact new border changes. They’ve also accused Johnson of sidelining them in the negotiations, a perennial complaint from the right flank during McCarthy’s speakership.

Johnson was spotted chatting with members of the Freedom Caucus on the floor during votes on both Thursday and Friday as they tried to push him to reject his own spending deal. And some conservative hardliners are vowing they will keep working to figure out an alternative plan, which would include a short-term funding patch, ahead of next week’s shutdown deadline.

“I think we need to have the Republican priorities on border security baked into this government funding discussion. And that was what I was just chatting with the speaker about,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters.

For his part, Johnson argued that the bipartisan deal was the best agreement he could get given the House GOP’s thin margins. He’s said that if he had more leeway, the agreement would look different. His lack of negotiating power was just a reality of the narrow majority, he argued.

“I don’t agree with the announced deal between the Senate and the House. … I’ve vehemently opposed it publicly and privately and I’ll continue to do so,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) said on Friday.

But Good dismissed speculation about ousting Johnson, calling it a “ridiculous supposition that someone who has been a speaker for two-and-a-half months … would be treated the same as someone who was in that position for years.”

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.