Republicans will control Washington for at least six more months, but they’ve already lost control of one-half of Congress.
Marred by infighting in his razor-thin majority, Speaker Mike Johnson no longer has a functional majority in the House. GOP leaders are struggling to fulfill the chamber’s most basic role on issues from government funding to authorizing critical spy powers that President Donald Trump himself has demanded, all just months before a critical midterm election.
“We can’t really agree on much of anything,” Rep. Troy Nehls, a Republican from Texas, said on Wednesday as leadership was trying to convince members to clear a procedural hurdle on the House floor to move ahead on key priorities, including the surveillance program extension. “This is our time to actually pass conservative legislation. That the American people gave us the gavel. They gave us the White House. … They gave us the Senate. And we have squandered an enormous amount of time away. We’ve squandered these opportunities.”
Johnson has tried to blame Democrats for the chaos, but frustrations are rising inside the US Capitol and at the White House – with many pointing to the House disarray for prolonging a 75-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that is threatening more chaos at airports in the coming weeks.
“The fact that this has gone on, what are we at? 70-something days? It’s a stunning testament to congressional dysfunction,” Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, an independent who formally left the party this year but still largely votes with the GOP.
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