McConnell, Speaker Johnson headed for shutdown clash over Ukraine

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Johnson says he wants to “bifurcate” the issues of Ukraine and Israel, and he has signaled early support for a stopgap funding bill that would include steep cuts to nondefense spending, which Democrats say would have no chance of passing the Senate.

Beyond the next three weeks, McConnell wants to pass the regular appropriations bills before Christmas in order to boost defense spending, while Johnson has floated the idea of freezing federal funding with a stopgap measure lasting until January or April.

Johnson has also proposed offsetting $14 billion in aid to Israel with other spending cuts, an idea that will be controversial with Senate Republicans and Democrats alike.

Adding to the challenge, few Republican senators had even heard of Johnson before his sudden election as Speaker on Wednesday, and McConnell still hasn’t even met him in person, though they spoke on the phone the day of Johnson’s election.

McConnell highlighted the challenges ahead, telling his Senate colleagues “we have a lot of work ahead of us” and urging House and Senate Republicans to “work together on a number of urgent priorities.”

Republican conservatives who want to shake up the GOP establishment in Washington and who were rooting for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to win the Speaker’s gavel are pleased by Johnson’s rise to power.

“We need to start breaking the mold around here. This isn’t working. We’re $33.5 trillion in debt. The old way of doing business has failed, is failing. We need to approach things differently. From my standpoint, within [the] Republican conference we need a different form of governance,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Sen. Johnson voted against reelecting McConnell to another term as leader in November.

McConnell and Speaker Johnson have strikingly different relationships to former President Trump and were on opposite sides of the debate on Jan. 6, 2021, when Johnson laid out the lawyerly arguments that many House Republicans used to justify their votes against certifying President Biden’s election.

McConnell hasn’t spoken to Trump since mid-December 2020 and hasn’t mentioned the former president’s name publicly in several years. He recently pushed back on Trump’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By contrast, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the push to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the Speakership, praised the new Speaker as “MAGA Mike Johnson” and proclaimed his election “shows the ascendance for this movement.”...

But Republicans like shutting down the government because that's all they know how to do.

IMHO, if. and I know that is a very big 2 letter word, of they can't find ground to work together the Democrats will end up taking control of the House.