Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised to force a vote on military spending that was scrapped last week thanks to opposition from the House "Freedom Caucus" and warned members of his own party against shutting down the government. We'll see if it falls on deaf ears.
Here's McCarthy with Fox's Maria Bartiromo this Sunday claiming they made some "good progress" over the weekend, and going on about "wokism" over, and over, and over again:
BARTIROMO: Let's talk about the meetings you've been having over this September 30th deadline. What can you tell us in terms of a path forward? Do you have agreement on a path forward?
MCCARTHY: I feel we made some good progress this weekend. When Republicans took the majority, we wanted the change Washington. Make members show up for work, no more proxy voting, bills have to go through committee, no more of these omnibuses where the appropriation bills get jammed to us on Christmas time.
What we're trying to do is pass them individually. Unfortunately, I had a handful of members last week that literally, the Republicans, stopped the Department of Defense appropriations from coming forward.
None of them can complain. This is giving our troops a pay raise, making our military strong against China, getting the wokism that the Democrats have put in out. And and so I'm trying to get that that to move forward to stop, to make sure that the Republicans aren't stopping us from being able to get our work done before the 30th.
BARTIROMO: So why don't you just bring the bill to the floor to see who would vote against funding the military?
MCCARTHY: We will do that this week. I gave them an opportunity this weekend to try and, work through this, and we'll bring it to the floor, win and lose, and show the American public who's for our military, who's for giving them a pay raise and making sure we can take the wokism out.
BARTIROMO: Talk us through the issues that you're feeling push back from this handful of members on a continuing resolution. What do you want to see happen here in?
MCCARTHY: I understand the frustration we have with this administration, but it's a difference of strategy. Some people say you should shut down. But think about this, I've been through shutdowns, and I've never seen somebody win a shutdown.
Because when you shut down, you give all your power to the administration. But how are you going to win your arguments to secure the border if the border agents don't get paid? How are you going to win the arguments to get wokism out of the Department of Defense if even our own troops aren't being paid? You have no strength there. I think the greatest ability to it's finish the appropriation work to show that we do, give us a short time period to get that done and make the case to the American public.
He's correct that a shutdown would be disastrous for them, but not for the reasons he stated here. He's lost control of his caucus and has the MAGA nuts threatening to oust him if he doesn't follow through in impeachment. No word yet on exactly when the defense spending vote will be rescheduled.
