Speaker Mike Johnson said the House could come back to pass emergency legislation to pay troops during the government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune wasn’t willing to go there.
The unusual tactical disagreement between the two top congressional leaders played out in front of cameras Tuesday on Capitol Hill as the shutdown heads into its second week.
The House has been out of session as Johnson seeks to pressure Senate Democrats to approve the GOP-led stopgap funding bill his chamber already passed. But he opened the door at a Tuesday news conference to calling members back to vote on standalone legislation paying troops, who could miss paychecks on Oct. 15, or air traffic controllers, who could miss their first checks Friday.
“I’m certainly open to that,” Johnson said. “We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid.”
But Thune — who has consistently said it’s Democrats’ responsibility to pass the seven-week House stopgap — interjected after Johnson spoke, saying, “Honestly, you don’t need that.”
“Obviously, there are certain constituencies — many of them are going to be impacted in a very negative way by what’s happened here,” Thune said. “But the simplest way to end it is not try to exempt this group or that one or that group. It’s to get the government open.”
Johnson then spoke again to say the priority should be to open the government and that Democrats could do it quickly. He added that any plan to pay members of the military would have to pass by Oct. 13 in order to process the paychecks on time.
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