Speaker Mike Johnson’s honeymoon cut short by the House GOP

House Republicans are struggling with the same battles over government funding that led to the oust of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, seemingly resulting in cutting any honeymoon short for new Speaker Mike Johnson.

Amid disputes on spending, the GOP leadership put forward put spending bills from the floor this week. With the government funding deadline less than a week away, the conference is still divided over how to avert the shutdown.

Representative Thomas Massie,, shortly after GOP leaders pulled a funding bill from the floor, on Thursday, said he had thought Johnson would get a 30-day honeymoon.

He went on to add that with everything that is currently going on on the floor, “I think that indicates the honeymoon might be shorted than we thought.”

The members from the right wing of the party has put in efforts for months to move partisan funding plans across the floor. Passage of those bills, their leaders have argued, would increase their leverage with Senate Democrats.

Now, the things have changed since the last Speaker, as the centrists in the House GOP who had long acquiesced to the right flank’s demands under McCarthy are no longer willing to do so under Johnson.