House Republicans are going back to square one after the deal negotiated on Thursday failed decisively just hours later.
The deal, the result of daylong negotiations between various ideological wings of the House Republican Conference and President-elect Donald Trump's team, failed 174-236 with one person present and 20 absent. .
An astonishing 38 Republicans voted against the hastily assembled Trump-backed deal, and nine did not vote.
President Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance came forward Wednesday afternoon to push a final gamble on the heart of an earlier agreement negotiated by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democrats. Support for the deal quickly surged before Trump took action to reframe the debate, arguing that the next Congress should have included a debt ceiling increase to take this difficult issue off his administration's agenda. It was getting worse.
The new agreement removed more than 1,000 pages of pork and other provisions unrelated to keeping the government open.
As a result, only two Democrats supported it, one voted, and 11 did not vote.
Mr Johnson brought the bill to the floor under suspended rules, but needed two-thirds support to pass.
I didn't come close.
Many Republicans from all sides of the conference who voted against it may have felt free to vote against it because the bill was doomed to fail, or in protest of Johnson's handling of the process.
Republicans now need to decide the path forward, not only in funding the government, but also who can lead the party in this and future battles.
Republican leaders have indicated they will not push the bill through the Rules Committee, and the bill could pass on the floor with just a simple majority. However, the bill did not garner enough Republican support to meet that floor.
Leadership informed members there would be no further votes on Thursday.
Negotiations will continue, but who will lead them is another question after Trump's team had to intervene to defuse the situation just to get the bill to a vote.
It is unusual for so many Republicans to oppose a bill backed by Trump. Sources told Breitbart News that many of the 38 no votes were in protest of Johnson's continued leadership of the conference.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) earlier announced that he would oppose Johnson in the Jan. 3, 2025, House Speaker election vote. Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said Thursday night that he too would vote against Johnson if the vote were held today.
These two negative votes are enough to sink Mr Johnson, but further opposition is likely.
Johnson's inability to pass Trump's bill could signal Trump's loss of confidence in the chairmanship. That would be the decisive shot that would cost Johnson the chance to retain the gavel.
The deadline to pass the spending bill is midnight Friday.
Republicans must act quickly if they want to pass a funding bill and get on the same page before President Trump takes office.
They face some tough questions about how best to move forward.
Bradley Jay is Breitbart News' Capitol Hill correspondent. Follow him on X/Twitter. @BradleyAJay.
