The right is pressuring Johnson to abandon the spending deal to avoid a shutdown

Speaker Mike Johnson came under increasing pressure Thursday from Republican Party hardliners in the House of Representatives to cancel the spending deal he struck with Democrats over the weekend to avoid a government shutdown, as ultraconservatives demanded that he come up with a new plan with deeper cuts.

After a private meeting in his Capitol office with Republicans furious about the spending deal, Mr. Johnson said he discussed their demand to walk away from the bipartisan deal but that he had “made no commitments” to do so .

But Republicans made clear that they viewed the deal the speaker negotiated as a nonstarter, and threatened to wreak havoc in the House of Representatives if he did not come up with another deal. They are pushing for deep cuts, and many have said they cannot vote for any government funding measure that fails to put serious pressure on immigration.

“It’s a bad deal,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said of the plan Mr. Johnson agreed to with Democrats. “It’s a deal that I don’t support and that other conservatives at the conference don’t support either. So he will have to go back to the drawing board.”

Mr Johnson has told critics of his deal that he would consider dropping it, but only if they could come up with an alternative that could attract a majority in the House of Representatives, where the party has just a two-seat lead . Such a plan would need support from both far-right and more mainstream Republicans in competitive districts, who have resisted the scope of the cuts and conservative policy diktats their colleagues have demanded.

The outburst underscored the treacherous terrain Johnson faces as he tries to keep the government funded while assuaging the anger of hardliners at his conference. It came a day after a dozen right-wing lawmakers in the House of Representatives rioted and brought things to a standstill in protest of the spending deal.

What the ultra-conservative members are suggesting — abandoning a deal days after it was announced — would amount to a remarkable break by Mr. Johnson with Senate Democrats, Republicans and the White House just three months into his presidency. Mr Johnson said after the meeting on Thursday that he would continue to discuss “financing options” with a cross-section of lawmakers, and denied making any promises.

“While these discussions are ongoing, I have made no commitments,” Mr Johnson said. “If you hear something different, it’s just not true.”

The possible withdrawal from the deal, which essentially stems from President Biden’s agreement last year with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to suspend the debt ceiling, took senators by surprise. Democrats said they would press ahead with the deal they struck with Mr. Johnson, and with a temporary spending patch — known as a continuing resolution, or “CR” — to buy more time after the Jan. 19 deadline to pass this without partial approval. government shutdown.

“Look, we have a top deal,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader. “Everyone knows that if something has to be done, it has to be bipartisan. So we will continue to work to achieve a CR and avoid a shutdown.”

It was clear from the start that Johnson would have to rely on Democratic votes to pass a bill in the House of Representatives, forging the same coalition that McCarthy used in September to avoid a government shutdown – a step that led to his expulsion.

The Freedom Caucus repeatedly rose up against emergency funding bills that essentially kept government spending flat during Mr. McCarthy’s term, and their response to a similar plan from Mr. Johnson was no different. Some conservatives are pushing for a one-year funding plan that would lead to cuts across the federal government, including both domestic and military spending. It’s a plan that Democrats say would undermine social programs, and one that politically vulnerable Republicans may be reluctant to support.

“What I think we need to do is fund the government at a level that cuts our spending year after year, that secures our borders,” said Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus.