WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson is “confident” that the partial government shutdown will conclude by Tuesday, despite procedural snarls and Democratic leadership declining to guarantee critical votes.
The government entered a partial shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after Senate Democrats decided at the last minute to rebuff a bipartisan funding deal that had been in the works, demanding reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Let’s say I’m confident that we’ll do it at least by Tuesday,” Johnson (R-La.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“No one wanted to put that pain on the American people again. The Democrats forced it. We were insistent that we would not allow that to happen,” the speaker added. “…Republicans are going to do the responsible thing.”
The dynamic of the current government shutdown is very different from the 43-day record-breaking one last year, when the two sides deadlocked for weeks without a clear path out of it.
Last month, the House passed a bundle of six funding bills to keep the government open for the duration of the fiscal year. Senate Democrats rejected that in the wake of Border Patrol’s shooting of Alex Pretti, 37, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
Instead, a deal was struck to pass five of those six bills and essentially put the sixth one, which covers the Department of Homeland Security, on autopilot for two weeks to allow negotiations to play out.
Because the House was out of Washington, DC, last week on recess, it was unable to pass that new, $1.2 trillion deal. Congress previously passed the other six of the necessary 12 appropriations bills to fund the government. As a result, operations not covered by those bills have been forced to shut down.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has demanded that the Trump administration tighten its use of warrants, end roving patrols, enforce better “accountability” on immigration officers, force masks off officers and use body cameras.
Johnson said that requiring masks off and agents to wear some form of ID are unacceptable demands, recounting a conversation border czar Tom Homan had with Schumer, telling him that wasn’t acceptable.
“Those two things are conditions that would create further danger,” Johnson told “Fox News Sunday.”
“Some of these conditions and requests that they’ve made are obviously reasonable and should happen. But others are going to require a lot more negotiation,” Johnson added on “Meet the Press.”
Already, Trump has begun adjusting his crackdown on Minnesota under Operation Metro Surge, tapping Homan to be the point person there, with the border czar revealing plans to draw down federal personnel.
Despite those overtures, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) privately told Johnson that he can’t guarantee Democratic support for the compromise deal to reopen the government. Publicly, he’s been noncommittal.
Of particular concern for Republicans is that Democrats won’t assist in fast-tracking passage of the funding deal via a process known as suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds vote.
Given the likely GOP defections and threadbare majority, the speaker will need dozens of Democrats to get it across the finish line through that process.
Because that is likely to fail, Johnson is expected to turn to the more time-consuming traditional process and try to wrangle it through the House Rules Committee before taking it to the floor.
The rules panel is set to weigh the government funding deal on Monday.
“We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town and because of the conversation I had with Hakeem Jeffries,” Johnson lamented. “I know that we’ve got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own. I think that’s very unfortunate.”
