Unsolidified strategy

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has a plan to avoid a possible government shutdown. But that’s news to many of his fellow Republicans.

Despite messaging from Johnson that Republicans would look to pass a temporary spending bill (known as a continuing resolution, or simply “CR”) that would run through March 2025, many rank-and-file members told WORLD they aren’t aware of the plan. The CR would temporarily avoid a government shutdown but would leave questions about funding for 2025 unanswered.

At the moment, government spending runs out on Dec. 20.

“We will have a temporary measure, I think, that would go into the first part of next year and allow us the necessary time to get [government spending] done,” Johnson told Fox News Sunday.

Just two days later, many Republicans emerging from their weekly closed-door party meeting on Tuesday said they weren’t sure that plan was a sure thing.

When asked what the speaker had told the conference, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., said he wouldn’t discuss the specifics but told reporters he hadn’t heard one clear path of action.

“If anybody takes from this meeting that he laid out a specific plan on the appropriations process, I think that would be inaccurate,” Diaz-Balart said. “These are conversations.”

Diaz-Balart said he wasn’t aware of the comments Johnson had made to Fox.

It’s not just rank-and file members who have questions about the plan. I asked Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., if the proposals for a continuing resolution were set in stone. Emmer, the conference whip and the No. 3 Republican in the chamber, would play a key role in mustering the votes for any plan the speaker decides to pursue.

“We will know when the speaker tells us,” Emmer said of the plan.

Besides the ambiguity of the plan itself, some Republicans also want to know more about what a short-term spending bill would look like. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., isn’t ruling out any plan yet, but he wants to know what, exactly, would go into it.

“I don’t want to rush to judgment,” Dusty Johnson said of the possibility for a CR and whether he would support it. “We need to gather more information. Would sure be nice if we had a deal with the Senate on topline. It would sure be nice if we knew if [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer was interested in making a deal.”

Dusty Johnson noted those questions could only be answered through continued dialogue within the caucus. I asked him if he thought a short-term spending package—and more spending bills after that—would get in the way of a strong start to the Trump administration’s first 100 days.

“In a perfect world, we would be able to focus on President Trump’s agenda on day one,” Dusty Johnson said. “But we don’t live in a perfect world, so we just have to see what the art of the possible is.”