Kevin McCarthy faces a 'perfect storm' of demands as a shutdown looms
When the House returns Tuesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will confront deadlines and intraparty conflicts, raising fears of a government shutdown.
WASHINGTON — When the House returns Tuesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will confront a series of legislative deadlines and intraparty conflicts that have been bubbling up for months, raising fears of a government shutdown when money expires on Sept. 30.
The issues — from government funding and aid for Ukraine to a potential impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden — are significant individual challenges. Taken together, they amount to a daunting Rubik's Cube for McCarthy, R-Calif., who must align a host of competing interests. He has little time, a paper-thin majority and a Democratic-led Senate and White House that are ready to play legislative whack-a-mole against right-wing priorities.
Looming over the end-of-the-month deadline is that some right-leaning Republicans insist McCarthy’s job isn’t safe if they don’t get what they want.
"There's a perfect storm brewing in the House in the near future, in September," Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, told MSNBC's Jen Psaki in an interview Sunday.
McCarthy doesn’t have ‘any reason’ to pursue impeachment inquiry, GOP congressman saysSept. 6, 202307:52“On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a [short-term funding bill]. And we also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues,” Buck said. “So you take those three things put together, and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, has made promises on each of those issues to different groups. And now it is all coming due at the same time.”
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