Hardliners pressure Johnson to back off spending deal with Schumer as shutdown looms

Hardline conservatives are ramping up pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson to walk away from a topline spending deal struck with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a move that threatens to derail bipartisan negotiations with Congress just days from a partial government shutdown.

GOP hardliners, who want deep funding cuts, expressed optimism after meeting with Johnson on Thursday that the speaker could revise the agreement, which would set spending at close to $1.66 trillion overall – but the Louisiana Republican was quick to say that he has made no commitment to back off the deal.

The fury from conservatives, and their effort to tank the deal, underscores the major challenge facing Johnson as he attempts to steer his extremely narrow majority ahead of a shutdown deadline next Friday. If Johnson were to walk away from the topline agreement, that would create a massive breach of trust with the Senate and could put Congress on a path to a shutdown.

One day after conservatives staged a revolt on the House floor in protest over the spending deal, a group of GOP hardliners met with Johnson on Thursday. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said that Johnson assigned the group a task. “He just said, ‘What way do you want me to go? You show me how we can get 218 votes.’ That’s his question.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, said they were working on revising the deal in the meeting.

“In there, he agreed with everything I said. He claimed in there he agreed with other conservatives, everything that we said, so there’s going to be a new deal drawn up and that’s what we’re in the process of doing,” Greene said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks to reporters after the House Freedom Caucus' meeting in