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It’s shutdown day. Johnson has a few options

The House Republicans who voted against the CR

Punch Power Matrix

Guthrie wants to take a go at privacy again

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It’s shutdown day. Johnson has a few options

Happy Friday morning. Today is our last regularly scheduled edition of 2024.

It’s not a happy Friday morning for Speaker Mike Johnson. This has been an absolutely disastrous week for the speaker, President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

It got so bad that during a meeting with lawmakers in his office Thursday, Johnson said “If anyone else can get 218 votes, God bless them,” according to three lawmakers present. Meaning they can become speaker other than him. Some in the room took it as a joke. But it seems clear Johnson is aware of his plight.

The federal government will shut down at midnight tonight. And the House Republican leadership — as divided, back-biting and leak-obsessed as ever — has to figure out how they’re going to keep federal employees on the job.

If you’re reading this newsletter, you almost certainly know that Johnson’s Trump-endorsed Plan-B-funding-and-debt-limit bill failed miserably on the House floor Thursday night. Thirty-eight Republicans ignored Trump and Johnson’s entreaties and voted against the bill, showing the limits of both men’s power in the House.

All but two House Democrats voted no. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) voted present.

After the vote failed, Johnson, who was mobbed by reporters just feet from the House floor, tried to stay positive. “We will regroup and we will come up with another solution so stay tuned,” Johnson said.

Vice President-elect JD Vance and Russ Vought, Trump’s pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will meet with members of the House Freedom Caucus today at 7:45 a.m. in Johnson’s office to try to resolve the impasse. We scooped this Thursday night. The HFC requested the meeting. It’s a big moment for Vance and Vought.

The HFC is sure to bring up that Vought rallied opposition to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s 2023 debt-limit deal, which included spending cuts. Vought now is part of an incoming administration that’s asking Republicans to support a clean debt-limit increase.

What might Johnson’s solution look like? Now that Johnson has cycled through two options, the clock is ticking and he needs a plan — and fast.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who disagreed with Johnson’s decision to push a short-term CR after the election, said they’re “looking at some other options.”

“What exactly is in or out hasn’t been decided, but you start with keeping the government open,” Scalise told reporters leaving the Capitol.

Anything Johnson does now needs to have Trump’s support — either tacit, or better yet, public. The only way Johnson survives the Jan. 3 speaker vote is if Trump is openly backing him. And Thursday’s episode showed even that might not be enough.

1) Try the bill that failed — again. Plan B could become Plan C. Republicans could schedule a vote on the CR package that failed on Thursday again. That’s clearly the package Trump wants, after his “SUCCESS in Washington” tweet.

2) A negotiated settlement. Although Trump might not like it, Democrats have a price. Johnson can get together with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and figure out what Democrats need to support a bill to fund the government past tonight.

The problem for Johnson is this runs the risk of both dividing the House Republican Conference and angering Trump by trying to again cut a deal with Jeffries. Democrats have to be convinced Johnson won’t renege again, as well as being able to deliver enough votes. Sources close to Jeffries say they can deliver the votes. The question is can Johnson?

3) Drop the debt-limit increase. If Johnson were to drop the debt-limit increase from Thursday’s bill, that might be an attractive option for Republicans and even some Democrats. Remember, that’s a three-month CR with disaster funding and an extension of the farm bill. With a shutdown just hours away, this isn’t a bad move.

Plus, many Republicans are truly opposed to Trump’s call to extend the debt limit now. Congress is six months ahead of any debt-limit deadline. Also, Trump also dropped this demand into lawmakers’ laps two days before a shutdown.

4) A short-term CR. There was some talk inside the GOP leadership and among rank-and-file members about a short-term CR to fund federal agencies until early or mid-January. But this wouldn’t change the current reality: Johnson has a very small majority, he has to deal with a volatile incoming president, face down an emboldened mega-billionaire with a social media platform and has a generally uncooperative House Republican Conference.

On the other hand, this would at least allow the temperature to cool and get members home for Christmas. The GOP can regroup in January.

This doesn’t help Johnson remain speaker. But it would avoid a shutdown.

We should note that Johnson has some serious procedural headwinds as well. The GOP leadership once again didn’t give itself “same-day authority,” a parliamentary tactic that would allow the speaker to vote on a rule the same day the Rules Committee reports it. There are some procedural maneuvers Johnson can take to correct this.

The more likely scenario is that the speaker will try to pass something under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

The ultimate question that we don’t have an answer for right now is whether Trump and Vance really do want a shutdown. We’re not entirely sure what that would achieve or how Republicans could “win” such a showdown.

Here’s Vance as he left the Capitol Thursday evening.

It certainly sounds like they’re raring for a shutdown, which they think would impact President Joe Biden — who hasn’t been a player in this drama — more than Republicans. Yet remember the 2018 shutdown? Trump lost that after failing to achieve his goal on a border wall. It’s hard to see how this is different when he isn’t even in office for another month.

– Jake Sherman, Melanie Zanona, John Bresnahan and Mica Soellner

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HOUSE GOP

The House Republicans who voted against the CR

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) was the loudest Republican critic of Speaker Mike Johnson’s alternative CR plan. But he was hardly alone in opposing it.

A whopping 38 House Republicans rebelled against the stopgap spending measure, handing the speaker an embarrassing floor defeat after House GOP leadership spent all day scrambling to find an internal agreement on a path forward. Government funding runs out at midnight tonight.

The “no” votes largely consisted of conservatives who detested the idea of raising the debt limit for two years without any offsets or spending cuts. That includes GOP Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Andy Ogles (Tenn.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Kat Cammack (Fla.).

But there were also some Republicans beyond the usual suspects who opposed the bill. One that especially caught our eye was Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), a member of the House GOP leadership team. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who chairs the Freedom Caucus but is also an appropriations cardinal, voted against it too.

Meanwhile, retiring Reps. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) all rejected the CR. Why vote no when you’re about to leave Congress?

And then there’s Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), who narrowly won his reelection and will be a top target for Democrats again next year, still opposed the plan.

These are Republicans who theoretically should have been in Johnson’s corner on the CR. But there’s been widespread frustration with how Johnson handled this entire process. Even Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), one of Johnson’s supporters, said “mistakes were made” by the speaker.

The final vote tally also shows some limits to President-elect Donald Trump’s influence, although he’ll undoubtedly still be running the show next year. Yet Trump is the one who demanded a debt limit increase and endorsed a plan that later failed.

Trump’s target list. The question now is whether any of the Republicans who dared to defy Trump will face repercussions. Trump already called for a primary challenge to Roy, who excoriated his Republican colleagues in a blistering floor speech.

Some Republicans were irritated by Roy’s actions. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) suggested Roy “thinks he’s more important than the incoming president.” Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), a fellow Freedom Caucus member, told us he thought Roy could have used more “finesse” or been “gentler” in how he communicated his opposition.

But plenty of Freedom Caucus members rallied to Roy’s defense. Perry called him a “friend” and “good man.” Ogles praised Roy for “working diligently.” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) predicted it would be difficult to defeat Roy in a primary.

And Massie said once you survive a Trump-fueled primary challenge — like he did — then you have the “antibodies.” Massie also said Trump can’t primary every single Republican who opposed the CR since there were so many of them.

Roy downplayed the threats and whether he’d need to repair his relationship with Trump. “We’ll figure all that out going forward,” he said. “Politics doesn’t drive me. What drives me is saving the country and more debt isn’t going to save the country.”

As far as other forms of blowback, we asked whether Massie, who won’t back Johnson for speaker, was worried about being kicked off the House Rules Committee. But Massie told us he already offered to be taken off the panel next year. He said Johnson is “thinking” about following through on this offer.

— Melanie Zanona and Mica Soellner

WHO’S UP, WHO’S DOWN?

Punch Power Matrix

— Max Cohen

TECH POLICY

Guthrie wants to take a go at privacy again

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the incoming chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he really wants to take on the tech issues that have stymied the panel this year.

Here’s what Guthrie told us about privacy for web users of all ages and kids’ protection:

If you haven’t followed the twists and turns of digital bills in the Energy and Committee, here’s what that means.

The ideal first priority for Guthrie would apparently be to pass a bill that protects everyone’s data. It’s a goal that’s proven popular and yet elusive for many years. Just this summer, outgoing Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) put together a bipartisan comprehensive privacy measure as a legacy item. It fell short due to objections from House leadership, particularly House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

“Kids are vitally important,” Guthrie said. “But I think it’s also important the way that our information is accessed and used as well.”

Next up would be kids’ protection, including a social media design bill known as the Kids Online Safety Act. KOSA made it through the committee this year but failed to become law.

Guthrie seemed to leave room to jump straight to KOSA if comprehensive privacy proves highly difficult.

Still, KOSA notably faced concerns from Speaker Mike Johnson that it would hurt free speech. Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. jumped in to support a revamped Senate version of KOSA, but Johnson said the bill still needed more tweaks.

A wrinkle here is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who’ll be chairing the Senate Commerce Committee. Cruz definitely wants to start with kids, and he told us he wants to basically start all over again on comprehensive privacy.

Guthrie said he’s due to meet Cruz to align priorities right after lawmakers return in 2025.

— Ben Brody

… AND THERE’S MORE

News: Naz Durakoğlu will serve as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-N.H.) staff director for Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Durakoğlu most recently served as the State Department’s assistant secretary of legislative affairs. Before that, Durakoğlu was a senior national security adviser to Shaheen and a top State aide under former President Barack Obama.

— Max Cohen

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