McCarthy juggles government shutdown, Biden impeachment inquiry as House returns to messy fall

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy He is a man who stays on the move: enthusiastically greeting tourists on Capitol Hill, traveling abroad last week to attend the G7 summit of world industrial leaders, raising funds at home to elect his colleagues republicans to the majority of the House.

But behind the whirlwind of activity is a stubborn gridlock, a power imbalance among the far-right Republicans who lifted McCarthy to power. the role of the speaker but it threatens his own ability to lead the House.

It is a political confrontation that will be tried again As the House returns this week from a long summer recess and McCarthy faces a collision of difficult challenges: trying to avoid a government shutdown, supporting Ukraine in the war and launching an impeachment inquiry into the president. Joe Biden.

“They have a lot of work ahead of them,” said the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Thune of South Dakota.

McCarthy, from California, “will have his hands full trying to figure out how to navigate and execute,” he said.

Congress has been here before, as has McCarthy in his almost two decades in officeBut the stakes are getting higher, with Republicans buoyed by an increasingly far-right faction that refuses to let things continue as they are in Washington.

With the former president donald trumpBacked by McCarthy, McCarthy’s right wing pushed him into the president’s office earlier this year only after he agreed to a long list of conservative demands, including the ability to call a quick vote to “clear the presidency” and remove him from the presidency. office.

That threat of an abrupt overthrow looms over McCarthy’s every move, especially now.

For starters, Congress faces a deadline to finance the government by the end of the month, or risk a potentially devastating federal shutdown. There are just 11 business days for Congress to act once the House resumes on Tuesday.

Faced with backlash from conservatives who want to cut government funding, McCarthy could ease the way by turning to another far-right priority, launching an impeachment inquiry into Biden into the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

For McCarthy, managing both tracks (a government funding process along with an impeachment campaign) is an unusual and politically fraught task.

But start a formal impeachment inquiry Biden could help appease Republican allies of Trump, who has emerged as the GOP favorite to face Biden in the 2024 White House election.

“They’re milking him,” Brad Woodhouse, a veteran Democratic operative, said of McCarthy. Woodhouse is now a senior adviser to the Congressional Integrity Project, which is preparing to criticize Republicans over Biden’s impeachment.

The White House has said Biden is not involved in his son’s businesses.

But Trump’s allies among House Republicans are working frantically to uncover any links between Biden and his son’s business, as they describe it. hunter biden such as trading the family name for financial enrichment and working to erode public support for the president before the presidential election.

Republicans have yet to present evidence of President Biden’s wrongdoing.

White House spokesman Ian Sams said: “President McCarthy should not give in to far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they obtain a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden. “The consequences for the American people are too serious.”

Meanwhile, what should have been a fairly prescribed process for funding the government after McCarthy and Biden negotiated a deal deal of more than 1 billion dollars earlier this summer on the debt limit appears to be unraveling. Even a stopgap measure to simply maintain government funding at current levels for a few months while Congress tries to finish spending bills is a non-starter for McCarthy’s right flank.

Conservatives pushed by the House Freedom Caucus insist that federal spending be reduced to 2022 levels and want to add other priorities to the legislation.

Otherwise, they say they will oppose a temporary measure, called continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government running.

“We must curb reckless inflationary spending and the out-of-control federal bureaucracy it funds,” the Freedom Caucus wrote in a statement in late August.

With control of dozens of votes, the far right can deny McCarthy the support he needs to pass a Republican bill on his own. But relying on Democrats’ votes would bring other problems for McCarthy if he is seen as disloyal to their ranks.

Conservatives want to bolster border security and address what Republicans deride as the “militarization” of Justice Department prosecutions, including those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. They also want to end what what they call the Pentagon’s “woke” policies as the Department of Defense attempts to provide diversity, equity and inclusion to service personnel.

Signaling the difficult road ahead, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a Trump ally, mockingly reposted one of McCarthy’s recent videos welcoming tourists to the Capitol.

“For Kevin to think this was the video we needed right now is depressingly revealing,” Gaetz said on social media.

“We need a SPEAKER, not a GREETER.”

Congress also has a pending request from the White House to provide an additional $40 billion on three fronts: some $21 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion; $12 billion to replenish federal disaster aid after floods, fires and other problems, including to stem the flow of deadly fentanyl across the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

McCarthy has promised there will be no “blank check” for Ukraine as he works to appease skeptical Republicans who want to end U.S. involvement in foreign affairs, particularly in Russia.

While the shutdown is McCarthy’s most pressing issue, the Biden impeachment inquiry is his biggest political gamble.

McCarthy has signaled that an impeachment inquiry is coming. But “there is no date marked on the calendar,” said a person familiar with his thinking and requested anonymity to discuss it.

Not all House Republicans are eager to begin impeachment proceedings. “We can waste time on issues that aren’t important, or we can focus on issues that are,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

Trump faces his own more serious charges of wrongdoing, including federal indictments over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden and his refusal to return classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He has been charged four times this year.

Watching from the Senate, which has been working to pass the 12 regular bills needed to fund government operations through committees ahead of floor votes that begin next week, Republicans hope calm will prevail in the Senate. Camera on all fronts.

Several Republicans have not hidden their disinterest in the impeachment process against Biden.

And Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said those who don’t think a federal shutdown of government operations is a big deal should visit her home state of Alaska and see “real life.”

During a previous government shutdown, Murkowski said crab fishermen couldn’t get out on the water because federal permits couldn’t be issued.

“You know, we have a lot going on here in Congress right now,” he said. “So the House will have to sort out its priorities, and hopefully they will be priorities that are in the best interest of good government operations.”

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