Johnson says he will stick to deal to avoid shutdown and reject hard-right demands
Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he supported the spending deal he struck with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown, rejecting demands from ultraconservatives who have pressured him to jettison the deal.
The announcement, after days of public silence about what he would do, all but guaranteed that Mr Johnson will have to work with Democrats in the coming days to pass a short-term bill to keep the government funded within a pair of January 1 deadlines . February 19 and 2, going back on his promise never to bring up a temporary spending measure again.
Mr Johnson has faced increasing pressure from far-right Republicans, who are furious over spending levels in the bipartisan plan, to find an alternative. They have begun to ignore the threat to force a vote to impeach the Louisiana Republican, subjecting him to the same fate as his predecessor.
But after a series of meetings with both ultra-conservative critics and politically vulnerable Republicans in swing districts who urged him to stick to the compromise, Mr. Johnson emerged and declared: “Our top-line agreement remains.”
“After weeks of hard-fought negotiations, we have reached a strong agreement,” he said, adding that Republicans had made concessions including accelerating $10 billion in cuts to IRS enforcement and clawing back $6 billion in non- Covid dollars spent and other relief measures. funds.
The announcement, which enraged the far right, came minutes after an animated back-and-forth in the House of Representatives with members of the Freedom Caucus, many of whom had demanded he scrap the deal entirely in favor of deep cuts and refused continue to fund the government without a serious crackdown on migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“My message is the same as before: We have to make cuts year after year, we have to secure the border,” Representative Bob Good of Virginia, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said after the exchange. “We need border enforcement combined with a spending deal to fund this administration. We should not continue to fund this border invasion.”
The scene summed up the situation Mr. Johnson finds himself in as he tries to govern a divided Republican conference with a slim majority — the same predicament that bedeviled his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Mr. Johnson started the morning meeting with mainstream Republicans who face tough reelection races this year. They urged him to stick to the deal he made with Democrats, saying their voters cannot tolerate the kind of deep cuts the Freedom Caucus is demanding.
“We have 10 to 12 loud people trying to take over the entire conference,” said Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska as he left Mr. Johnson's office. 'We have to do what is good for the country. And the vast majority of us know that he — and the speaker before him — negotiated the best deal we could get.”
“I think the speaker needed to hear that the vast majority of us are behind him and just move on,” Mr. Bacon added. “Let's finish this.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader, moved Thursday to take action next week on an emergency measure to give lawmakers and aides time to translate the blanket funding agreement into 12 individual spending bills that can be adopted and signed. legislation, a time-consuming process. Lawmakers have not yet agreed on how long this will last.