Bitterly divided House GOP emerges from retreat in search of ‘normal Congress’

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va — House Republicans retreated to a swanky resort above a former nuclear bunker cut into the mountains here for a recent summit, but even that couldn’t shield them from the political fallout of bitter divisions within their ranks.

Less than half of their caucus attended last week’s annual House Republican Issues Conference.

Former President Donald Trump reportedly declined an invite to the Wednesday-through-Friday huddle as he was forced to tend to legal issues in Florida, and the big speaker of the retreat — TV anchor Larry Kudlow — dropped out at the last minute and was replaced by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick.

Rank-and-file members also tend to generally dislike such retreats, feeling they’re often a distraction and won’t move the ball on winning elections, sources told The Post.

While many GOPers who made the trek put on a bright face and emphatically painted a rosy picture of the situation to the press, every now and then, hints of frustration slipped out.

“The House, while you might describe it as chaotic, the Republican-led majority has gotten a lot of really important substantive work done,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) insisted during a press conference Wednesday.

Top Republicans including House Speaker Mike Johnson (center), New York Rep. Elise Stefanik (right) and North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson led their party’s annual retreat last week to chart out its agenda for the remainder of the crucial political year. Getty Images

Still, “A lot of us long for a normal Congress again,” he later acknowledged.

More than six months into the fiscal year, Congress still hasn’t fully funded the government. Most significant proposed legislation these days tends to need to rely on Democratic support and avoid the House Rules Committee, where it has been stalled thanks to a few recalcitrant GOP lawmakers.

Then there’s the fact that the House GOP took the rare step of expelling a member — former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) — over fraud allegations, and eight Republicans embarked on a mutiny against the party’s now-former speaker last year.

Bubbling frustrations over the low levels of productivity in the House of Representatives and inner party strife have seemingly catalyzed a wave of retirements.

Underpinning all of this is a deep-rooted internal friction among the GOP, further exacerbated by the razor-thin majority that emboldens hardliners.

Johnson begs members to stop the infighting

In public, House Republicans were all smiles and very optimistic about their party’s prospects when talking about last week’s summit.

“Honestly, I think this has been a fantastic conference. Our member retreat has been positive, informative, and I think we’re all leaving here actually feeling united in our policies and our messaging,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich), secretary of the House Republican Conference, told reporters.

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) boasted that the GOP is a “very enthusiastic conference” and chalked up the low attendance to some members’ ongoing primary races.

Johnson and Stefanik emphasized that Republicans are enthusiastic about their accomplishments and excited about the future. Getty Images

Behind the scenes, GOP leadership had a more pointed message to its membership.

Johnson explained to The Post that his “big team speech” to everyone at the conference was going to be “for us to stand together.” Some members said after his speech that they came away feeling they’d been reprimanded.

In particular, the speaker impressed upon his members the importance of steering clear of campaigning against each other.

A Capitol Hill source vented to The Post afterward, “They only show one side of the battle. They didn’t show moderates declaring war on conservatives” first.

Some GOPers such as firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) have supported primary challengers to incumbents. Last month, for example, Gaetz campaigned for Darren Bailey against incumbent Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Gaetz, who led the group of eight renegade Republicans that banded together with a solid bloc of Democrats to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October, was nowhere to be found at the Greenbrier resort, where the GOP held its retreat.

Instead, he was in Texas campaigning with social media influencer Brandon Herrera who is challenging incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

Renegade conservative Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida skipped the retreat and campaigned against a GOP incumbent instead. Shutterstock

Johnson also carefully mentioned the possibility of partly defanging the parliamentary tool that took out his predecessor McCarthy — a motion to vacate. Simultaneously, he went out of his way to stress that he wasn’t too worried about it either way.

“The motion to vacate is something that comes up a lot amongst members in discussion, and I expect there’ll probably be a change to that as well,” he said.

“I’ve never advocated for that. I’m not the one who’s making it an issue because I don’t think it is one for now.”

Shrinking majority

A day before the House Republican Issues Conference began, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) announced plans to step down the next week, shrinking the GOP’s threadbare majority to 218-213.

“Lots of notice, 30 minutes, yeah,” Johnson said sardonically to The Post when asked during a fireside chat with him about Buck calling the speaker shortly before going public with the announcement.

“I hope and believe that that’s the end of the exits for now,” the speaker said.

Buck had been eyeing a CNN gig, The Post exclusively reported in September. At the time, he vented about his frustrations with the House GOP, dinging them for opening an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) announced just before the retreat that he is stepping down from Congress early, as reports surfaced he is eying a possible CNN gig. AFP via Getty Images

Buck also later mused to Axios, “It’s the next three people that leave that they’re going to be worried about” — referring to the party’s ultra-slim majority.

Turning the page on dysfunction

It’s no secret, that House Republicans are eager to shore up their numbers. At the retreat, they contended that the political landscape is ripe for them to do just that.

“We’ve got one of the best political environments we’ve seen in decades because President Joe Biden and the Democrats have failed,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-NC) said at the summit.

GOP leadership also downplayed the spate of party retirements, drawing attention to how most of those aren’t taking place in vulnerable districts.

“There’s a lot of talk about retirements. Every single Republican retirement is in a safe seat. Democrats have four retirements in competitive seats,” Stefanik emphasized. “We believe it’s an opportunity for us to win.”

Republicans think they have a strong shot at fortifying their razor-thin majority in the lower chamber in November. Getty Images

The four Democratic retirements she referenced involved Reps. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).

Additionally, top Republicans such as Johnson described recent regional redistricting as a “wash overall.” Stefanik surmised that the much-hyped-up changes in the Empire State, for example, left most key GOP districts “untouched or they were slightly changed.”

Still, Johnson believes that there is a ceiling to how much Republicans can potentially grow their majority.

“I think that we are beyond the days of large super majorities on either side because of gerrymandering and the way redistricting has been done and handled around the country,” he said.

As a result, Johnson conceded, there will be a necessity for “dialogue” with the other side.

“What a concept. We have to govern. And we have to treat one another with dignity and respect,” he said.

Donald Trump was popular at the House Republican retreat — even though he was a no-show. AP

Bullish on Trump

All factions of the ideologically diverse House Republican conference said they are united in at least one respect — their antipathy toward President Biden.

Republican leadership sounded exceedingly bullish about the 77-year-old Trump’s prospects ahead of the Nov. 5 rematch with the 81-year-old commander-in-chief.

“Republicans, particularly in the House, never do better than when President Trump is on the ballot,” Stefanik said, seeking to refute narratives about him being a drag on the ticket.

Technically, Republicans lost about 10 seats in the lower chamber when Trump successfully ran for president in 2016, but they dramatically pared down the Democrats’ majority in 2020, when he lost to Biden.

“We’re going to usher in a new dawn of leadership under President Donald Trump and a strong large House majority,” Hudson said.

Path forward on Ukraine, spending, etc.

Looming over the retreat were ongoing legislative battles over government funding and Ukraine.

For months, efforts to replenish military aid to war-torn Ukraine have flamed out in the lower chamber, as Republicans have splintered on the issue.

A clearer picture emerged of how leadership is planning to re-up aid.

Texas GOP Rep. Michael McCaul (left), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. French Hill (R-Ariz.) have said they believe that the House will push through a Ukraine aid package. Getty Images

“I don’t want to get into personal conversations with [Johnson], but it is my belief that he will [put it up for a vote and] that it will be after the normal appropriations [process],” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said.

Johnson told The Post that taking up a supplemental package for aid to Ukraine earlier could have complicated the delicate appropriations process for other spending that needed to come first.

He voiced confidence that the House can wrangle through its last batch of such spending bills before the March 22 deadline to avert another shutdown.

Stefanik also conveyed confidence to The Post that Republicans are prepared to craft a robust legislative agenda in the event that the GOP captures the trifecta — the presidency, Senate and House — in 2024.

“I’m optimistic that the work that we’re doing now will set the stage for a very productive legislative agenda and results that pass through not only the house the Senate but get signed into law by President Trump,” she told The Post.

Republicans met at the Greenbrier resort to recalibrate their messaging and plot out their policy objectives. Getty Images

No trainwrecks this time

The last time Republicans trekked the roughly 250 miles to Greenbrier for their retreat was six years ago. Notably, their train collided with a truck en route to the lavish resort.

Many members were bused down there this time around.

They got to hear from a number of key guests, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life President Marjorie Dannenfelser; venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who talked about artificial intelligence, former Defense Secretary Chris Miller and Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog.

The setting for the retreat matched the mood. The Greenbrier was once the last refuge of US lawmakers during the Cold War in the event of nuclear fallout.

More than 50 feet below the ground, a 112,000-square-foot bunker sat for more than 30 years to house both chambers of Congress in the event of a nuclear attack before it was exposed to the public in 1992.