House Speaker Mike Johnson says spending deal with Schumer remains in place despite pressure from hardliners to walk away

By Clare Foran, Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Haley Talbot, CNN

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he remains committed to the topline spending deal he struck with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a blow to hardline conservatives who have been pushing him to walk away from the agreement and yet another example of how the speaker has struggled with key decisions.

In comments to reporters on Capitol Hill, the Louisiana Republican touted the topline that was announced last weekend and said that the agreement “remains” in place – a day after he appeared to be at least entertaining the idea of abandoning the deal in meetings with conservatives.

The announcement will help keep bipartisan efforts to fund the government on track, but risks further angering his right flank, a dynamic that highlights Johnson’s precarious position. As he navigates an extremely narrow majority, the speaker, who is still relatively new to the job, is caught between competing factions of his own conference of hardliners and moderates and hyper aware of the potential blowback for making the wrong move.

That pressure Johnson is under has started to show, according to multiple lawmakers who have been in private meetings with him this week.

During a House GOP leadership meeting on Tuesday, Johnson got visibly frustrated with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, according to sources in the room, and pressed the Virginia Republican on what his strategy would be to get out of a government shutdown if that’s where they end up.

Johnson was more jovial during a meeting with appropriators and moderates on Friday, but still expressed some exasperation over the hardliners who revolted against his spending agreement. The speaker joked to the group that he has been a staunch conservative his entire life and felt like he was losing his mind, according to a source familiar with the conversation, who emphasized it was a light-hearted remark meant to bring some levity to the situation.

For the most part, though, members said Johnson has been in listening mode, hauling in lawmakers from all corners of the conference, hearing out their perspectives, and facilitating earnest conversations. But he has largely kept his cards close to the vest, careful not to make or reveal any decisions – and leaving some members walking away with conflicting impressions about his plans.

“As a leader, at some point, you’re gonna need to make decisions,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN.

Next steps

While Johnson affirmed a commitment to the topline spending deal, there is still much more to be done to avert a shutdown and Johnson has not yet made the next steps clear. The consensus on Capitol Hill is that lawmakers will need to pass a short-term extension next week to avert a partial shutdown, but Johnson has not yet said how he believes that should be handled.

He did float the idea of a stopgap spending bill that extends funding until February 9 during a meeting with appropriators and members in tough districts Friday morning, according to GOP sources familiar with the meeting, but the idea received some push back and the speaker has not made any final decisions.

After Johnson brought up the idea of a February 9 deadline, sources said some Republicans in the room explained that they will need more time than that to write and pass their bills. Instead, they argued for a March deadline, which is what the Senate has been eyeing.

The struggle over a stopgap bill comes the same week hardline conservatives ramped up pressure on Johnson to walk away from the topline spending deal struck with Schumer and expressed optimism after meeting with Johnson on Thursday that the speaker could revise the agreement, which would set spending at close to $1.66 trillion overall.

However, after receiving sharp warnings from the more moderate wing to not go back on his word, Johnson told reporters on Friday that the deal is intact.

“Our topline agreement remains,” Johnson said. “We are getting our next steps together and we are working toward a robust appropriations process so stay tuned for all of that to develop.”

In a change from other recent funding fights, Congress is confronting not one but two government shutdown deadlines early this year – on January 19 and February 2. It’s unclear if Johnson will keep the so-called laddered approach; hardliners are pushing to keep it while appropriators want him to ditch it.

If Johnson had walked away from the topline agreement, that would have created a massive breach of trust with the Senate and could have put Congress on a path to a shutdown.

But Johnson defended the deal on Friday.

“After weeks of hard-fought negotiations, we achieved a strong topline agreement that allows our appropriations committee and all those who work on this to complete the appropriations process,” Johnson said. “The topline agreement includes hard won concessions to cut more billions from the IRS giveaway and the Covid era slush funds,” he said.

He added, “It brings Congress much closer to regular order which is our big commitment here and keeping with my commitment to bring members into the legislative process I’ve spoken and received feedback this week from many members all across the Republican conference. That’s a very important part of this.”

Hardline conservatives have been pushing for a yearlong continuing resolution that is paired with HR 2, a House-GOP passed border security bill – a demand that they reiterated to the speaker during an intense conversation on the House floor on Friday, according to sources familiar with the conversation.

But attaching HR 2 would make the stopgap bill dead on arrival in the Senate, while GOP defense hawks would prefer to save the border fight for the supplemental aid package, where they are hoping to unlock additional aid for Ukraine.

“It was about how our desire for border reforms fit into this discussion about government funding, and the value of resolving some of those issues in the government funding contest rather than in the supplemental,” GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said of their floor conversation with Johnson.

Ousting Johnson not seen yet as a real threat

Looming over everything is the possibility that conservatives could push to remove Johnson the same way they ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy – though as of now that does not seem to be a real threat.

Good, the chairman of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told CNN that he remains opposed to Johnson’s spending agreement with Schumer.

“I don’t agree with the announced deal between the Senate and the House that came from the weekend, I’ve vehemently opposed it publicly and privately and I will continue to do so,” said Good, noting that Johnson did not inform him ahead of time that he was planning to stick with the agreement.

But pressed on whether he has lost confidence in Johnson’s ability to lead the conference, Good argued that it is too early in the speaker’s tenure to pass judgement.

“It’s a ridiculous supposition that you would – that someone that’s been a speaker for two and a half months, or been the leader of our party for two and a half months, would be treated the same as someone who was in that position for years and is the reason why we needed new leadership,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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