Facing new challenges to his leadership, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to accomplish what sometimes seems impossible by furiously convincing Republicans in the House of Representatives to come together and pass a conservative bill to keep the federal government open.

It’s a near-pointless exercise that might help McCarthy keep his job but has little chance of actually preventing a federal shutdown. Whatever Republicans in the House of Representatives come up with will almost certainly be rejected by the Senate, where Democrats and most Republicans want to fund the government.

In a dramatic sign of defeat, Republicans in the House of Representatives even voted against their own defense bill on Tuesday. During a rowdy vote in the afternoon, the usually popular bill was left out of consideration.

212-214 214-212

, after five far-right conservatives helped sink it. They want to see an overall plan from McCarthy.

McCarthy simply walked off the floor of the house.

Look, the one thing you’re going to learn about me: I like a challenge. I don’t like this big challenge, but we’ll just keep doing it until we can make it, McCarthy told reporters.

With time running out, Congress faces a September 30 deadline to pass broader government funding legislation and get a bill to the president

Joe

Biden’s office becomes law. Otherwise, the US will face massive federal government shutdowns and disruptions. Plans for another vote Tuesday to advance the overall spending bill were put on hold.

The balls are in Kevin’s court, said

Republican

Representative Ralph Norman

(RS.C.)

of the Freedom Conference.

The House GOP’s latest funding proposal, a compromise between members of the far-right Freedom Caucus and Main Street’s more pragmatic conservatives, was nearly dead on arrival and continued to sputter even after McCarthy loaded it with cuts and Republican priorities in the field of border security. package.package.

Behind closed doors on Tuesday, the speaker tried to emphasize the political consequences of a government shutdown for Republicans, warning them that no party wins with a shutdown.

Unlike last week, when an angry and frustrated McCarthy unleashed profanity on his colleagues, he tried a different approach as he addressed members privately in the basement of the Capitol.

McCarthy appeared cool, calm and collected, treating the funding plan as just a proposal and leaving time for rank-and-file members to debate, Republicans familiar with the meeting said.

Yet one Republican after another stood up to tell McCarthy that the current plan would not count on their votes. With a slim majority, he needs almost every Republican on board.

Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), one of the Main Street group’s negotiators, later urged her colleagues not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The confrontation over the usually popular defense bill shows the difficulties ahead. It was the second time McCarthy tried to advance the measure after abruptly eliminating it from consideration last week.

The effort to ease tensions among Republicans comes at a time when emotions are running high and big personalities are trying to seize the upper hand, some trying to provide leadership and others hoping to disrupt any compromise plans.

Florida’s two leading conservatives

Republicans

Matt Gaetz and newcomer Byron Donalds are darting around the halls and on social media, as Gaetz criticizes the deal Donalds and others made as insufficiently conservative.

And freshman Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) pointedly attacked McCarthy as a weak speaker.

Veteran lawmaker Steve Womack (R-Ark.) warned that the infighting could derail the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, just as it did with previous speakers like John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Both retired earlier than expected amid the ongoing threat of impeachment.

Womack said he fears a bigger fight is underway that is more personality-based because of the conflict between certain members and the speaker.

The month-long funding package McCarthy is pushing would impose steep cuts of more than 8% on many government departments, while sparing defense and veterans bills. It would last 31 days in hopes of giving Republicans in the House of Representatives time to pass more traditional government funding bills.

The White House released a memo detailing the cuts to the Republican plan, saying it would mean less

border patrol border patrol

agents, resources for school teachers, Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start slots for children.

Extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with people’s lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown, the White House said.

Across the street from the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader

Chuck Charles E.

Schumer

(DN.Y.)

Warned of the steep cuts the Republicans are planning with their cruel and reckless spending plan.

At its core, Republicans in the House of Representatives are trying to undo the deal McCarthy made with Biden earlier this year to set federal funding levels as part of the debt ceiling fight. Conservatives rejected that measure at the time, even though it had been passed and signed into law, and are now trying to dismantle it.

But Republicans in the House of Representatives are coming too late in their efforts and time is running out to act. Whatever bills they pass are sure to stall in the Senate, where bipartisan groups of senators have already begun passing their own funding bills, some at a higher level than the Biden-McCarthy deal.

The dozen or so Republicans who have expressed displeasure with McCarthy’s proposal see the current impasse as a moment when the speaker can stick to pledges to drastically cut government spending.

If my party doesn’t stand up, what is the right thing to do?”

said

Sparta

asked

. “As hard as it is, I don’t think anyone else will do that.

When Spartz was asked if she would support an effort to oust McCarthy, she said she was open to anything.

But Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who helped draft the proposal, all but dared his fellow Freedom Caucus members and other so-called conservative colleagues to reject it, especially his dream bill provisions for dealing with the U.S. border with Mexico.

If my conservative colleagues want to vote against that, please explain, Roy said.

The holdouts want sharper cuts to match the $1.47 trillion in annual discretionary financing they initially advanced earlier this year to raise the country’s debt limit.

A seasoned lawyer,

Republican

Representative Mike Simpson

of Idaho (R-Idaho)

warned of pain that awaits Americans if the government closes its doors.

“It would be disastrous,” he said. I’ve never seen a time when a shutdown is good policy or good politics.

Simpson suggested it was time for McCarthy to reach out to Democrats to make a bipartisan deal.

But that would almost certainly lead to McCarthy’s right flank trying to hold a vote to oust him from the speakership.