House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has the House in complete turmoil right now.
He has been unable to get the entire caucus on the same page with a government shutdown looming.
It is now to the point that he may have to make concessions to Democrats in order to pass the legislation before time runs out.
McCarthy has several factions of the House working against him.
This all started because of demands from the House Freedom Caucus, which is a group of MAGA Republicans demanding border security funding, including the wall, as well as reduced spending to start to cut down the deficit.
Initially, McCarthy made concessions to the Freedom Caucus, but then another faction resisted the legislation that McCarthy thought he would be able to pass. As a result, McCarthy has failed in passing appropriations legislation, with little more than a week before the government will be forced to shut down.
McCarthy looks weak, and the party is in total disarray right now.
The Republicans in the Senate are not looking upon this favorably. They know if the government gets shut down, everyone is going to blame Republicans, and it could hurt them in the election.
The consensus seems to be that Republicans cannot just get out of their own way right now.
One GOP Senator did not want his name on the record but stated:
"He's a new Speaker, this is a test of his Speakership.
"Sooner or later he's going to have to go to [House Democratic Leader] Hakeem Jeffries [N.Y.] because we're going to get a CR on this side and what will pass here just is not going to get 218 Republicans in the House."
Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) stated, "I hope they have a plan. I have no idea how they get to where they need to go, but they need to get there."
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) added, "The ultimate outcome will be 218 Republicans and Democrats [who] will pass something that doesn't have conservative-leaning to it."
Republicans had an amazing opportunity in 2020, and they blew it. They had an even bigger opportunity in 2022, and they screwed the pooch again.
Now, here we are, a little more than a year out from the 2024 election, quite possibly the best opportunity of all three elections, and we could wind up with the worst outcome because of failed leadership.
Our leading GOP nominee for the White House has multiple indictments hanging over his head and could have a felony conviction by the time the general election rolls around.
I just saw a poll on Thursday that only 26% of voters would pull the handle for Trump if he is convicted of a felony, but Trump has no intention of dropping out of the election if convicted.
The latest WPA Intelligence survey has Biden now leading Trump 43-41, but that number changes dramatically if Trump is convicted. If Trump is convicted prior to the general election, Biden then holds a 45-39% lead over Trump.
Trump is also crashing among independent voters, with only 30% supporting him if convicted, and 44% leaning toward Biden in that scenario.
I bring this up because if they are not voting for Trump or not coming out to vote for Trump in the general election, we get crushed in the down-ballot voting, which means we would not only allow Dems to keep the Senate, but we could conceivably lose the House back to them as well.
Now, think about how damaging to this country and the conservative cause it would be to have an incumbent president with a current approval rating of 42 percent, who is completely underwater on every issue, beat the GOP nominee.
We would have no way to block Democrats on their extreme climate change, foreign policy, and immigration agendas.
The first domino in this scenario coming true is McCarthy's failure to get the party behind legislation that would prevent the government from shutting down without giving in to Democrats.
Keep in mind, as voters, we asked our Senators and Representatives to elect new leadership in 2022, and what did they do?
Donald Trump backed McCarthy and McDaniel, and they both won their respective positions. Senator McConnell (R-KY) was again voted in as Minority Senate Leader.
And because they did not listen to our demands, we now stand to lose everything.
