Between losing elections, “panic” over resignations, and flaming out on their own political stunts, we figured Speaker Mike Johnson might not have enough time to set the agenda for today’s House GOP retreat — so we put one together for him.
Here’s a list of things House Republicans need to figure out:
#1: How to grow a backbone and disobey Trump in order to finally pass a bipartisan border security bill like the one Republicans in Congress killed at Trump’s command – despite two-thirds of Americans backing the deal.
Trump: “I think [Republicans] are making a terrible mistake if they vote for the bill.”
New York Times: “Republicans Against Border Enforcement”
Rolling Stone: “Border Patrol Supports ‘Strong’ Immigration Deal. Republicans Don’t Care”
CNN: “Trump, who is hoping to make immigration a key plank of his presidential campaign, has suggested on Truth Social that approving additional resources for the border would make Republicans ‘look bad.’”
Vox: “Trump made this clear when he reportedly urged Republicans in Congress to turn against the bipartisan Senate border security bill scheduled for a vote Wednesday so that he could keep the issue alive through the presidential election. His supporters have largely fallen in line.”
#2: New ways to hide from their all-out assault on women’s basic freedoms — after 125 House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, sponsored extreme legislation to ban abortion nationwide that could threaten IVF access.
Associated Press: “Republicans block Senate bill to protect nationwide access to IVF treatments”
Business Insider: “This Congress, 125 House Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson — have cosponsored the ‘Life at Conception Act,’ which states that the term ‘human being’ includes ‘all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.’
“The bill does not include any exception for in vitro fertilization (IVF), a reproductive treatment that allows mothers to fertilize several eggs outside the womb in order to increase the chances of a viable pregnancy.”
CBS Mornings: “Do you see [standard IVF practices] as murder?”
Mike Johnson: “It’s something that we’ve got to grapple with. It’s a brave new world. IVF’s only been invented, I think, in the early ‘70s.”
Politico: “Dozens of congressional Republicans have signed onto so-called personhood legislation with no carve-out for embryos in clinics, which, if enacted, would upend how the procedure is practiced in the United States.”
#3: An explanation to America’s seniors for the MAGA plan to gut Social Security and Medicare.
Joe Kernen, CNBC: “Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?”
Trump: “So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.”
Mediaite: “During a Fox News town hall, President Donald Trump promised to cut entitlements like Medicare and Social Security if he were to win a second term. … ‘But if you don’t cut something in entitlements, you will never really deal with the debt,’ town hall co-moderator Martha MacCallum interjected, alluding to social safety programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. ‘Oh, we’ll be cutting,’ Trump rushed to confirm.”
Semafor: “These days, the RSC is best known around Washington as a GOP policy shop responsible for crafting proposals to balance the federal budget, often through changes and cuts to Social Security and Medicare.”
“The Conservative Playbook” by the RSC, led by Chairman Mike Johnson in the 116th Congress: “With our entitlement programs facing dire financial futures and more Americans receiving welfare benefits than ever before, we cannot afford to waste money simply because the federal bureaucracy writes checks to the wrong people or for the wrong amount.”
#4: A plan to rebrand their reputation as the least productive Congress since the Great Depression by putting an end to the petty political games and prioritizing Trump’s political interests over taking real action to make life better for working families.
Punchbowl News: “This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress. It started this way under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and has gotten worse under Johnson.”
New York Times: “But in today’s Republican Party, doing the right thing is considered a transgression, not a virtue — a sign of unforgivable allegiance to the political establishment. … House Republicans, beholden to a base that reveres former President Donald J. Trump and detests compromise, have become ungovernable. And it is doubtful that his precipitous downfall will break the fever.”
Washington Post: “One other factor has brought the House Republicans to this point. That is the person and example of Donald Trump, the former president. Trump put governing by chaos on steroids (if one can call what he did governing) and in doing so produced a group of Mini-Mes, symbolized most by the politician who brought down McCarthy on Tuesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.). This is the kind of leadership the party now offers the country.”
HuffPost: “House GOP Impeaches DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — Just To Help Trump”
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