President Donald Trump touted GOP unity in Washington just days after Republicans sparked intense chaos on Capitol Hill and further extended the government shutdown.
“Thank you to all of our Great Congressional Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Senate Leader John Thune, for their work this week,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Republicans are UNIFIED, and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our FANTASTIC Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement Officers.”
His claim comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson dramatically caved on Wednesday, a week after vehemently rejecting the Senate bipartisan plan to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security.
Johnson last week called the Senate bill a “joke” and tried to claim Democrats were responsible for the plan in a bizarre denial that Majority Leader John Thune was in charge of the Senate.
But on Wednesday, Johnson and Thune released a joint statement announcing they would proceed with that plan pushed by Senate Republicans last week before they skipped town for a more than two-week recess.
The statement acted as if they had never clashed over the approach just last week. It stated, “Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.”
One bill would largely fund DHS. Then, congressional Republicans would use the so-called reconciliation process to pass ICE and Customs and Border Patrol funding without needing the help of Senate Democrats, who have balked at giving the agencies more funding without reforms.
Early on Thursday, the Senate sent its DHS funding bill back to the House a second time, but the shutdown will not end until next week at the earliest.
The House met pro forma for just two minutes Thursday morning with no business on the agenda. They’ll convene again for another pro forma session on Monday as nearly all House members remain on vacation.
However, it’s not clear whether, even if House Republicans do move forward with the Senate-GOP plan, it will pass.
Last week, conservatives on the House Freedom Caucus slammed the plan, causing Johnson to balk. Now, they’re being asked to vote for it anyway.
As GOP infighting further delayed the end of the partial government shutdown, Trump announced the TSA would begin being paid anyway, as worker shortages caused chaos and massive lines at U.S. airports.
On Thursday, in the same post where he bragged about unity, the president announced that he would “soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security.”
Critics have questioned why Trump did not move to pay federal workers impacted by the partial shutdown sooner and avoid the chaos that ensnared millions of Americans at airports if he had the power to do so as he claimed.
