GOP faces mounting pressure to pay troops during shutdown
Benjamin Weiss
WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday again refused to consider legislation that would ensure members of the U.S. military are paid during the government shutdown, bucking an emotional plea from the Republican spouse of one such service member.
With the shutdown threatening to drag into a third week, concerns have mounted about whether service members could miss a paycheck due Oct. 15. It would be the first time in more than a decade that troops have gone without pay during a government shutdown.
But while Congress has previously passed legislation to front military pay during government shutdowns, Johnson has slammed the door on the idea as Republicans pin the blame on Democrats for the lapse in federal funds. Though the House speaker signaled earlier this week that he might be open to such a bill, he recanted Wednesday, telling reporters that he would not entertain the legislation in the lower chamber.
And on Thursday, Johnson reiterated his opposition to a standalone military pay bill — even after fielding a public call from a military spouse who begged him to consider the option.
“We already voted to pay the troops,” he told Courthouse News during a news conference, referring to the House-passed stopgap funding resolution that has so far stalled in the Senate. “We did it three weeks ago. We put that bill on the floor … the Democrats voted no.”
Johnson’s remarks came just hours after he appeared on C-SPAN Thursday morning to field public questions on the shutdown. One caller, a military spouse who phoned in on the program’s Republican line, pressed him on his refusal to bring up a standalone bill to pay U.S. service members.
“As a Republican, I’m very disappointed in my party and I’m very disappointed in you, because you do have the power to call the House back,” she told the speaker. “You refused to do that just for show.”
The caller begged Johnson to pass military pay legislation, telling him that she has to pay medical bills for her children. “My kids could die,” she said. “You could stop this, and you could be the one that could say the military is getting paid.”
But despite that emotional plea, the House speaker was unmoved, pushing back on reporters’ questions about whether Congress should put the politics of the government shutdown aside and prioritize a standalone military pay bill. Instead, he accused Democrats of playing “games” with the lives of Americans.
“We’re not pursuing a political strategy,” he said. “They’re the ones playing politics, not us.”
Johnson repeated what has become a common refrain among Republicans during the shutdown — that the House-passed continuing resolution was “clean,” without any policy riders, and that Democrats had refused to sign onto a simple funding extension for federal programs in hopes of securing unrelated concessions, such as an extension to health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. He dinged Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has led Democratic opposition to the GOP’s budget stopgap, for what he said was a “desperate” effort to protect his seat in the upper chamber.
“Our goal, our strategy, is to keep the lights on for the people of this country, so that we can have their Congress working to resolve all these issues,” said the House speaker. “[Schumer] is playing games with the American people. Real people are being hurt, veterans and troops and everybody.”
Pressed by Courthouse News on why Republicans would not consider a standalone military pay bill if their goal was to protect service members, Johnson said that a “duplicative” vote on troop pay would “accomplish nothing” and claimed that Schumer would block it in the Senate.
Michigan Representative Lisa McClain, head of the House Republican Conference, visibly scoffed at the question.
“They’re playing games,” Johnson said of Democrats and Schumer. “He’s enjoying it. Golly, it’s despicable.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Wednesday that he would support a standalone bill to ensure troops are paid if the shutdown continues through next week. And even President Donald Trump has expressed some interest in the idea.
“That probably will happen,” he said in the Oval Office on Wednesday, adding that “we don’t have to worry about it yet” because the military’s payroll deadline isn’t until next week. “You know what one week is for me?” said Trump. “An eternity.”
The Senate on Thursday was set to take its seventh consecutive vote on the House-passed continuing resolution, which is again expected to fail amid a Democratic blockade. The measure’s likely failure will all but guarantee the shutdown continues into next week.
Democrats have for weeks slammed their GOP colleagues for moving the House budget patch without any bipartisan negotiation. They’ve demanded that Republicans agree to repeal certain Medicaid provisions from the “Big Beautiful Bill” made law over the summer, as well as extensions to the ACA subsidies set to expire at the end of the year.
Republicans have chafed at those demands and have so far refused to negotiate.
It’s still unclear how an extended shutdown could shift political winds on Capitol Hill. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published Thursday, 67% of Americans say that Republicans deserve a fair amount or great deal of blame for the lapse in funding. But nearly as many, 63%, said that Democrats are to blame for the shutdown.
Schumer, for his part, appears to believe that things are shaking out well for Democrats. “Every day gets better for us,” he told Punchbowl News on Wednesday.