The Republican congressional agenda is melting in the summer heat.
Intraparty fights, tight margins, election-year pressures and an indifferent president have grounded the pre-midterm legislative plans of GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, with just a handful of days left to do anything about it.
House leaders, in particular, appear to have lost control of their chamber with just eight session days before a planned five-week summer recess. They discarded two of those days this week, sending members home early for Independence Day after a member rebellion left them unable to move major bills.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s demands for action on a stalled GOP elections bill and a series of mercurial power moves have left Senate Republicans frustrated and morose as major legislation piles up — including the annual defense policy bill, fiscal 2027 spending measures, an extension of government spy powers, the farm bill and more.
“Who needs Democrats when you have your own party derailing the Trump agenda?” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) lamented Tuesday as members unexpectedly scattered for the upcoming holiday.
Absent strong leadership or presidential intervention, the contemporary Congress tends to act only when deadlines force it to, and that has made the early part of this summer especially languid on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers blew past a supposed June deadline for the surveillance program’s renewal, with spy agencies able to rely on existing wiretaps into early next year. The Pentagon bill doesn’t have to get done until the end of the year, and government funding expires Sept. 30, when it is likely to be extended beyond the November election — along with the farm bill.
Still, frustrations are mounting among the lawmakers who toil at the committee level to prepare bills for a dysfunctional House floor.
“We lost four bills that we might have been able to get across the floor,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Tuesday. “We’re losing time, and time is a very precious commodity.”
The one major piece of legislation passed in recent weeks, a bipartisan housing bill, remains unsigned by Trump, who recently called it a “big yawn.” And the GOP’s chances of passing a new policy bill under the party-line reconciliation process are looking increasingly remote.
House GOP leaders hoped a Trump administration request for defense funding would jump-start plans for that longshot bill, which could carry other Republican priorities ahead of the midterms. Instead, members are mired in fights over how to pay for the package, and hopes of moving forward with a budget blueprint for the bill ahead of the July 4 recess collapsed last month.
Key rank-and-file members and some House chairs huddled in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office Wednesday to plot a way forward on a reconciliation package, but another meeting with Budget Committee Republicans was canceled after GOP leaders sent lawmakers home early.
Those who stayed — including Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an avowed cheerleader for the party-line bill— acknowledged hope is fading fast.
“After this recess, if it doesn’t happen in the first couple of days, then I think it’s in real trouble,” Pfluger, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said in an interview.
Only a handful of potential developments appear capable of pulling the GOP majorities out of their summer torpor.
In the Senate, members are on guard for a potential Supreme Court confirmation fight — especially after National Public Radio mistakenly published a false report about Justice Samuel Alito’s retirement.
Otherwise the chamber is set to debate its version of the defense policy bill and process a handful of Trump nominations later this month before starting its summer recess. Other bills, including those dealing with college sports and cryptocurrency regulations, could also come to the floor.
Republicans in both chambers believe they could be forced to act on an emergency Pentagon funding request that the White House transmitted to Capitol Hill last week to cover the expense of the war with Iran. Farm assistance, disaster aid and other bipartisan priorities could ride along on that bill.
But the military funding request is facing serious doubts as GOP lawmakers bristle at a lack of information from the Trump administration on how the requested $67 billion would be spent — and whether servicemember paychecks and munitions stockpiles might be at imminent risk. Key Republicans left a classified briefing from senior Pentagon officials at the Capitol Wednesday frustrated at the unanswered questions.
“We recognize that the department needs more money fast,” said Rep. Ken Calvert of California, the top Republican responsible for shepherding the supplemental bill through the House. “We’ve got to figure out exactly how much that is, and we’ve got to do that as fast as possible.”
Asked as he left the briefing when exactly the Pentagon needs the money, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said, “Now.”
“This is really, really, really crucial,” he said.
But even if the administration coughs up the details appropriators like Calvert and Diaz-Balart are demanding, there is no sign the hard-liners holding the House floor hostage are willing to end their blockade — to say nothing about a potential Democratic filibuster in the Senate.
The 13 Republicans who tanked a procedural vote Tuesday had a variety of grievances. Some wanted to pressure the Senate to take up the elections bill, the SAVE America Act. Others wanted to protest Johnson’s failure to act on a border security measure, as they claim he promised to do weeks ago.
“When leadership is making promises and not following through and then you don’t do anything about it, then it’d be, shame on me,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).
But the proposed border bill is entangled in other intra-GOP conflicts, according to five people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. House GOP leaders and leadership staff huddled in a series of closed-door meetings Wednesday over the various issues, with still no solution to reopening the floor.
Some centrist Republicans don’t want to vote on it before the midterms, they said, and farm-state members are demanding GOP leaders add guestworker visa provisions — something immigration hard-liners sharply oppose.
Johnson held a call Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other members to try to find a path forward without making much progress, according to the five people.
It didn’t help, some members noted this week, that members were sent home early rather than hash out their differences in person.
“We shouldn’t be leaving town,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said. “We ought to be working, and we’re not doing it.”
Calen Razor and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
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