Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a political standoff when the House resumes this week.
“They've got some really heavy lifting ahead,” said the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota.
For McCarthy, running the two tracks — a government funding process alongside an impeachment drive — is an unusual and politically fraught undertaking.into Biden could help to appease Republican allies of Trump, who has emerged as the GOP frontrunner to confront Biden in the 2024 election for the White House.
Conservatives powered by the House Freedom Caucus are insisting federal spending is rolled back to 2022 levels and they want to add other priorities to the legislation. The conservatives want to beef up border security and address what Republicans deride as the “weaponization” of the Justice Department’s prosecutions, including of those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. They also want to end what they call the Pentagon’s “woke” policies as the Defense Department tries to provide diversity, equity and inclusion to service personnel.
While the shutdown is the more pressing problem for McCarthy, the Biden impeachment inquiry is his bigger political gamble.