House Republicans are in yet another internal civil war, this time over a plan to hand over $70 billion to the Department of Defense without paying for it in cuts elsewhere.
According to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News, this proposal would potentially "avoid a war with the moderates," many of whom are in battleground districts and looking over their shoulders over the prospect of any more cuts to services that benefit their districts. President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which slashed over $1 trillion from Medicaid and whose effects aren't even fully realized yet, has all but faded from Republican advertisements as the public has broadly turned on it.
At the same time, though, noted Sherman, nothing obligates the Senate to take up such a measure if the House passed it, and "some House Republicans are saying why take this risk if the Senate could ignore it."
All of this proves just one more complication as House Republicans rush to tie Pentagon funding to the SAVE America Act, a package of harsh new restrictions on voting that Trump has demanded be given the highest priority to pass despite not having the votes in the Senate.
Already, Trump has delayed legislation with his demands to get the SAVE America Act on his desk, and in protest, allowed a major bipartisan housing bill to become law without his signature.
For days, the House has been unable to advance legislation altogether because a small group of hardliners has blocked the adoption of a rules package until Trump's demands are met.