Congress is ending an especially chaotic week with an almost certain government shutdown.
The Republican-led House has failed to pass a spending plan, with speaker Kevin McCarthy facing a near-daily threat to his leadership, and the Democratic-led Senate lost Dianne Feinstein, Bob Menendez is facing an indictment and two members are out due to COVID, reported Politico.
“There’s a lot of stuff swirling around,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD). "It’s never dull."
The threat to McCarthy's leadership makes it unlikely that Congress can get anything accomplished through the 2024 elections, even if it can find a way out of the government shutdown, thanks to a GOP group that Republican Rep. John James of Michigan calls the "clown caucus."
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“All shutdowns begin with people confident that the shutdown is a good thing," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who's been through two of them, "and end with people knowing that it wasn’t.”
Newt Gingrich, who led a much more robust Republican majority compared to McCarthy, said he could “afford to have five or six people be idiots," but Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus who has since left, said right-wing lawmakers like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) challenge the speaker's leadership as a fundraising pitch.
“Now you’re incentivized, for your political survival, to burn the place down,” Schweikert said, adding that Congress was "more broken" by the minute.
“Not in real life — in movies," said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) of the current state of affairs. "It’s crazy.”
