CNN
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Donald Trump’s obsession with election fraud that doesn’t exist in any vital kind may drive the nation right into a authorities shutdown — and will even put the Republican Home majority in danger.
In a contemporary present of governing futility, Republican Home Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday failed to pass a six-month extension of presidency funding, with a measure hooked up to please Trump that makes it more durable for Individuals to vote.
The Republican nominee’s calls for for a invoice that targets noncitizen voting, which is already unlawful, pushed Johnson right into a nook with no apparent exits, elevating the potential of a Washington disaster within the run-up to Election Day that might blow again on the GOP.
The gambit has zero likelihood of manufacturing a brand new regulation — since Democrats who management the Senate oppose it. And Johnson couldn’t even get 16 of his personal members to vote for it for varied causes — together with unreconcilable calls for by some arch conservatives for enormous funds cuts, which additionally haven’t any likelihood of constructing it into regulation due to the fact of divided energy in Washington.
Johnson now seems to have little alternative however to barter with Senate Democrats on a short-term funding measure. However given the tiny Home GOP majority and Trump’s looming presence, each step the speaker takes might be perilous – particularly if he hopes to cling to his job if Republicans reach holding the Home in November.
Trump appears to be setting the GOP up for an intra-party struggle that might flip right into a catastrophe in November.
The historical past of presidency shutdowns means that the occasion with management of the Home — which has preliminary duty for the general public purse — normally pays the largest political worth. And if the speaker can’t beat a deadline of October 1 to fund federal operations, the federal government may partially shut down.
The previous president isn’t within the behavior of asking Republican Senate Minority chief Mitch McConnell for recommendation. However the Kentucky veteran warned on Tuesday that “the one factor you can’t have is a authorities shutdown. It’d be politically past silly for us to try this proper earlier than the election, as a result of definitely we’d get the blame.”
Satirically, Trump was on Wednesday within the state the place his stand may wreak essentially the most political injury for Home Republicans. He held a giant rally in New York, regardless that he’s a part of a tiny minority of people that suppose he can ship his delivery state in November.
Extra importantly, New York can be house to a number of massively aggressive Home races that went pink within the 2022 midterm elections and paved the way in which for the slim GOP majority. A political disaster over a shutdown that angers voters would, due to this fact, danger sweeping a few of the most susceptible Republicans within the nation out of their seats.
Probably the most threatened Republican lawmakers, Rep. Mike Lawler, from the state’s seventeenth Congressional District, predicted on “The Supply with Kaitlan Collins” Wednesday that the drama would finish with no shutdown and {that a} funding invoice would cross with out the voting measure Trump desires included.
“The truth is that we aren’t shutting down the federal government with 45 days to go earlier than the election,” Lawler, who supported the laws, stated.
One other at-risk New York Republican, Rep. Marc Molinaro, who bought a shoutout at Trump’s rally in Uniondale, voted for Wednesday’s bundle — however signaled he didn’t help driving the nation to the brink to make a political level. “We’ve got to help the continuity of presidency,” Molinaro instructed reporters.
The elections measure, which already handed the Home in a standalone vote earlier this yr, would require documentary proof of US citizenship to vote in an election. Critics warn such a regulation may disenfranchise residents who lack such documentation and say the laws is a repair for an issue that doesn’t exist.
Johnson has been pleased to indulge Trump’s voter fraud claims – each after the 2020 election and this cycle. However his need to please the previous president and his base is main him right into a deep governing gap. The Louisiana Republican has additionally not supplied proof to again his claims that a whole bunch of hundreds of undocumented migrants may vote in November.
It isn’t but clear how far the ex-president will push this challenge — provided that the election registration measure is doomed. One potential interpretation of Johnson’s resolution to carry the difficulty to the ground on Wednesday is that he wished to display to his occasion, and even the ex-president himself, that the struggle is hopeless.
“And so now we return to the playbook, draw up one other play, and we’ll give you an answer,” the speaker instructed reporters, amid rising frustration amongst some members of the Home GOP majority concerning the lack of readability on the way in which ahead.
However Johnson lacks any apparent play that may get him out of his jam.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — the Georgia Republican who’s a fervent Trump supporter and who has been a relentless irritant for Johnson – voted “current” on Wednesday. However she wouldn’t say whether or not she supported closing down the federal government. She as a substitute declared the speaker’s technique a “full failure” and added, “We weren’t right here in your complete month of August and will have completed our 12 separate appropriations payments.”
The constructing showdown on Capitol Hill is way from the primary time that Trump’s private political objectives have threatened to harm his occasion. His backing, for example, of a forged of weak candidates within the 2022 midterms — largely as a result of they endorsed his false claims of election fraud — seemed to be an element within the failure of an anticipated pink wave. And the ex-president’s antics promoted senatorial candidates that went onto lose in swing states, costing the occasion management of the Senate.
Trump’s stress on Johnson additionally helps clarify why the slim Home GOP majority is commonly pushed into excessive conditions and confrontations that it might’t win however which have led to this Congress being one of many least productive in fashionable historical past. Johnson, who took over from former Speaker Kevin McCarthy final yr, has usually discovered it unattainable to manipulate.
The willingness of Republican leaders to showcase Trump’s false claims of election fraud can be a menacing omen forward of an election that the ex-president is already implying is not going to be free and truthful. As he did in 2020, the Republican nominee seems to be laying the bottom to argue that he was cheated out of victory if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
For instance, the ex-president wrote on his Fact Social Community on Wednesday earlier than the Home vote: “Democrats are registering Unlawful Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we converse – They are going to be voting within the 2024 Presidential Election, they usually shouldn’t be allowed to.” There aren’t any information that again up the declare. However Trump warned: “If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and each ounce of it, they need to not conform to a Persevering with Decision in any manner, form, or kind.”
Trump’s resolution to carry a rally in New York puzzled many strategists, because it’s not a aggressive state in November. However the ex-president relishes showing on his house patch — and repeatedly celebrated his large crowd on the Nassau Coliseum on Lengthy Island. And provided that Trump attracts blanket protection on conservative media and plans to swing via battleground states in coming days, he in all probability didn’t lose a lot by rallying supporters in his unique house state.
If nothing else, he had enjoyable, ripping Harris repeatedly over her financial and immigration insurance policies, mocking President Joe Biden’s age, denying the existence of local weather change and portraying New York Metropolis as gripped by violent crime.
“We’re going to win New York,” Trump roared, claiming that he was the one Republican who may put the Empire State on the map on a day when the Teamsters Union declined to make a presidential endorsement after backing Democratic candidates in current many years. This was a blow to Harris that mirrored Trump’s success in reworking the once-corporate GOP into a celebration that’s now capable of courtroom working-class voters.
“Good seeing you once more,” the ex-president, who now spends most of his time in Florida, instructed his crowd as Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma” rang out as he left the stage.