Speaker Mike Johnson faced increasing pressure from House G.O.P. hard-liners to back out of the spending deal he made with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown. Ultraconservatives are demanding a new plan with deeper spending cuts.
After meeting with outraged Republicans in his office in the Capitol, Mr. Johnson said he was discussing their demand to walk away from the bipartisan agreement but had not committed to doing so.
But Republicans made it clear that they were not on board with the deal the speaker negotiated and threatened to cause trouble in the House if he did not propose a different one. They are calling for extensive spending cuts and many have stated that they cannot support any government funding measure that does not include a strict crackdown on immigration.
“It’s a bad deal,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said of the plan Mr. Johnson agreed to with Democrats. “It’s a deal that I don’t support and other conservatives in the conference don’t support. So he’s going to have to go back to the drawing table.”
Mr. Johnson told critics of his deal that he would consider dropping it, provided they could come up with an alternative that could win a majority in the House. This would require gaining the backing of both the far right and more moderate Republicans.
The disagreement highlighted the difficult position Mr. Johnson is in as he tries to keep the government funded while addressing the concerns of hard-liners in his conference. A day after twelve right-wing lawmakers revolted on the House floor, Mr. Johnson is facing a challenging situation.
The potential reversal from the deal, which largely aligns with the previous agreement to suspend the debt ceiling, caught senators by surprise. Democrats indicated that they would continue with the deal they made with Mr. Johnson to avoid a government shutdown.
“Look, we have a top-line agreement,” said Senator Chuck Schumer. “Everybody knows to get anything done, it has to be bipartisan. So we’re going to continue to work to pass a C.R. and avoid a shutdown.”
It was evident from the start that Mr. Johnson would need to rely on Democratic votes to pass any spending bill in the House, forming the same coalition that Mr. McCarthy used in September to avert a government shutdown. The Freedom Caucus repeatedly opposed stopgap funding bills during Mr. McCarthy’s tenure, and their reaction to a similar plan advanced by Mr. Johnson was no different.
“What I think we ought to do is to fund the government at a level that cuts our spending year over year, that secures our border,” said Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
