Let's talk about republican dysfunction threatening to tank their own deal.... - Belle of the Ranch

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Republican dysfunction threatening to tank their own deal.

Congressional Republican leadership announced a plan to pass DHS funding without funding for ICE and Border Patrol and then pursue a budget reconciliation package in an attempt to fund immigration related components. They were bigly proud of their efforts, which was basically a rehash of what Democrats offered them a few days before. They even put out a press release celebrating their brilliant idea. In the video talking about it, we talked about how midterm considerations might lead some Republicans to be a pain for leadership because they can't stay unified.

Yeah, that took all of 24 hours. On Thursday, House Republicans had a conference call. According to reporting, dozens of House Republicans objected to doing an about face on a package for DHS without ICE funding that they had publicly trashed. Johnson himself called it a joke.

On Thursday, Trump threw his weight behind the plan and posted, "Republicans are unified and moving forward on a plan that will reload funding for our fantastic Border Patrol and Immigration Enforcement officers. I will soon sign an order to pay all of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security."

House Republicans are pushing back even though the plan is backed by Trump. Quack quack. They don't want to be seen as flip-flopping or abandoning the hardline immigration rhetoric most adopted to appease Trump even though Trump is currently walking back his own rhetoric.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer released a statement about the latest breakdown in Republican cohesiveness. "House Republicans own the longest government shutdown in history. The deep division and dysfunction among House Republicans is needlessly extending the DHS shutdown and hurting federal workers who are missing another paycheck. The Senate did its work twice to fund the key parts of DHS without funding the lawlessness of ICE and Border Patrol. House Republicans need to get to work and end the longest Republican shutdown in history.”

Since it doesn't look like they're coming back from their vacation to push through the package, it looks like the earliest they'd vote on it would be April 14th. Republicans appear to be set to add almost 2 weeks to the shutdown because they don't want to fly back to DC.

What's more interesting is that because of the opposition on the call, it seems incredibly likely that they'll lose their ability to try to claim the Democratic plan to move forward with DHS funding for everything else why negotiations are underway as their own. Unless a lot of Republicans start to warm up to the idea over their break, Speaker Johnson will need Democratic votes to move it through the House.

If there was ever a snapshot of Republican concern for the working class, it would be failing to fund government employees, then coming up with a plan, but making them wait weeks so as not to interrupt their break. Truly the party of the working man.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.