House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) acknowledged to reporters on Thursday that the growing list of demands from his far-right flank is getting to be a lot to keep track of, between impeachment, far-right appropriation bill riders and their opposition to a short term spending bill.
McCarthy told Punchbowl Thursday morning that he’s “not quite sure what” his caucus wants.
“They have no complaints about the [defense] bill. But they don’t want to pass it,” McCarthy said when asked about government funding. “I got a small group of members who don’t want to vote for [continuing resolution], don’t want to vote for individual bills and don’t want to vote for an omnibus. I’m not quite sure what they want.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Thursday agreed.
“He’s not wrong in terms of the schizophrenic nature of some of the demands that have been made by House Republicans,” Jeffries told TPM during his weekly news conference. “The one point of commonality is that it’s all extreme. It’s just different levels of extremism. But it’s all extreme. And it’s not focused on finding common ground.”
Sticking with his usual messaging, Jeffries pointed to the far-right flank of the House Republican caucus and their hostage-taking tendencies as the problem.
Referencing the bipartisan deal President Joe Biden and McCarthy made earlier this year during the debt ceiling fight, Jeffries said those negotiations already “set top line spending numbers designed to meet the needs of the American people.”
“President Biden is committed to adhering to that agreement. House Democrats are committed to adhering to that agreement. Senate Republicans are committed to adhering to that agreement. Senate Democrats are committed to adhering to that agreement,” Jeffries told TPM.
“What’s the problem?,” he continued. “It’s obvious. The extreme MAGA Republicans.”
As funding runs out and the government heads toward a shutdown, far-right members of the Republican caucus are flexing their power over their colleagues by insisting on an impeachment inquiry while also attempting to block a short-term spending bill that leadership wants to pass to buy Congress time. In contrast, the Senate has passed all of its appropriations bills out of committee and is moving them along on the Senate floor – on Thursday senators quickly dispensed with procedural votes on several appropriations bills.
The delays in the House are tied to a number of factors, but primarily members of the Freedom Caucus are hijacking the typically bipartisan appropriations process to jam their party’s manufactured culture wars and far-right grievances into bills that won’t pass the Senate and won’t have any Democratic support in the House.
Before the August recess, MAGA Republicans began trying to attach anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ amendments to the appropriations bills while making noise about wanting to cut government spending to pre-COVID levels. Now they’ve put their party in the position of having created a handful of bills, some of which haven’t passed out of committee yet, that are dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, risking a shutdown as the Oct. 1 deadline looms.
When asked specifically about the Department of Defense appropriations bill, Jeffries took a shot at House Republicans for using the bill “to jam their extreme right wing ideology down the throats of military women, men and families.”
“That is wrong,” Jeffries said.
“And by the way, the last time I checked, they can’t even bring the defense appropriations bill to the floor because they’ve totally lost control of the floor to the extremists who are running the House Republican Conference,” he added, referring to the floor vote that was canceled on Wednesday when House Republican leadership realized they don’t have the votes to the pass annual defense spending bill.
“Hopefully, they will work it out so that we avoid a catastrophic government shutdown,” Jeffries told TPM. “But again,” he emphasized, “while we’re focused on fighting for everyday Americans, the extreme MAGA Republicans are focused on fighting each other.”
The fascist caucus wants chaos. They think it’s the road to increasing their personal wealth and power. They could be given everything they’re currently demanding and it still wouldn’t be enough, they’d just come up with even more ridiculous demands.
Anyone who has children knows that the younger they are, the less reasonable they are. Let’s face facts, the House Freedumb Caucus is a bunch of spoiled brats who have no idea what they want, what they’re doing or even why they’re doing it. They’re a complete waste of time and an embarrassment to the United States in general and to the House of Representatives specifically. Like children, they are distracted by the latest shiny toy and engage in acts of tantrums that are nothing more than shear emotional terrorism to get what they want in any one moment, which changes five seconds later because they’re not fully formed human beings. Understandable and forgivable behavior among children, utterly unacceptable and disgraceful among adults.
You know there are sufficient members in the Republican caucus that don’t want the Freedumb caucus agenda. They want to be reelected and they think that the crazy will stop them dead in their tracts.
Put those Republicans together with Democrats and create a unity house majority. Name McCarthy speaker and dump all the Freedumb caucus members and MTG from house leadership and spend the next year getting ready for the elections without all the bullshit.
Leader Jeffries twists the knife a little deeper. House Republicans in disarray.
The important thing to remember is that the Republican House Caucus is united in purpose, even if divided on means.
Some favor matches; others favor flamethrowers – but they all share a common goal of burning America to the ground, and I think we can all give them credit for coming together behind that shared aspiration.