Blog

Rep. Kevin 'secret concessions' McCarthy (R-CA) is facing perhaps the biggest challenge of his eight months as House Speaker; avoiding yet another government shutdown with a fractured caucus (ouch!).

Both the GOP controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate have until Sept. 30 to avoid the fourth potential government shutdown in a decade.

McCarthy overcame a major hurdle last week when he announced an impeachment inquiry into the Biden family, leading to a Sunday night proposal for a 30-day stopgap funding bill, which would allow House GOP leaders to push through bills to fund the Pentagon and DHS.

As Punchbowl News notes;

On Monday, the Rules Committee is scheduled to mark up the Continuing Resoplution, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise telling members on a Sunday night call that there will be a Wednesday vote on the Defense bill, and a Thursday vote on the CR.

That said, questions continue to swirl over whether McCarthy actually has enough GOP support to pass the CR – which more than a dozen conservatives have argued against on the grounds that it continues to fund the Ukraine war and "woke" policies by the Biden administration. According to Punchbowl, McCarthy has just a four-vote margin, with 'some Republicans likely to miss votes due to health issues.'

McCarthy "literally has no room for error here."

Punchbowl lays out four dangers facing McCarthy:

The next 13 days of DC drama leading up to the inevitable passage of the CR should be fun, eh?