Mike Johnson and House Republicans suffered back-to-back, embarrassing defeats. What comes next?

WASHINGTON – Republicans in the House had perhaps one of their most embarrassing and confusing days in recent memory on Tuesday.

GOP leaders called votes on two key legislative priorities for Republicans: impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and funding U.S. aid to Israel. Both of those votes failed in back-to-back, stunning losses on the House floor, and Republicans suffered what they described as disappointing and demoralizing defeats.

“Not good,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said.

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“Very frustrating,” Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., reflected.

“Shameful. Embarrassing,” remarked Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.

Last night’s votes, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said, were an exercise in “futility.”

The failure of both bills casts a dark cloud over House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as he looks to the House’s next legislative fights.

For example, a swath of government funding, which has already been temporarily extended three times, expires on March 1. If lawmakers can’t agree on a solution in the coming weeks, the nation will face a government shutdown.

That’s not all. The speaker will also have to reckon with a reauthorization of a foreign surveillance program that has deeply divided House Republicans.

As Johnson stares down these challenges, he’s tasked with explaining this week’s GOP losses. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, Johnson blamed Democrats and President Joe Biden for tanking the Israel aid effort, as the president threatened to veto the legislation if it made it to his desk.

And Johnson vowed that Republicans will bring forth the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas again for a second vote in the near future.

“The process is messy sometimes, but the job will be done,” Johnson said. “We have steady hands at the wheel, we’ll get through it, everybody take a deep breath. It’s a long game. We’re gonna get the job done.”

That effort failed Tuesday, and the vote to impeach Mayorkas was a long time coming. House Republicans have sought to punish the secretary since they took control of the lower chamber last year, but the efforts ultimately fell flat after a handful of GOP members tanked the vote. Those Republicans expressed concerns their colleagues were politicizing impeachment, lacking the grounds they needed to target Mayorkas.

And even as it became increasingly clear throughout the day Tuesday that Republicans lacked the necessary votes to pass an Israel funding bill, GOP leaders plowed ahead. To fast-track the bill and sidestep hard-right opposition, leaders put the bill under “suspension,” a procedural tactic that could expedite passage but requires two-thirds support.

The Israel funding bill ultimately failed to garner the necessary votes as the majority of Democrats voted against the bill. The lawmakers on the left cited a range of reasons, including a lack of humanitarian assistance for Gaza in the legislation. Some Democrats were also holding out for a separate, broader foreign aid package senators have been working on for months.

These weren’t concerns Democrats held in private, keeping their thoughts from Johnson. That’s why some Republicans immediately questioned their leaders for calling the votes, not their Democratic colleagues for voting against the priorities.

“They should have counted votes, and they didn’t do it,” Norman said of the effort to impeach Mayorkas.

Massie took to X, formerly Twitter, after the votes, saying in a post that the situation has spun into an “unmitigated disaster” after the removal of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last year. The Kentucky conservative denied he was taking a specific shot at Johnson to reporters on Wednesday, but he said “the results we’re getting are bad.”

So what comes next as Republicans try to regroup? Any legislation that comes out of the House, with a Democratic-controlled Senate and Biden in the White House will ultimately have to be bipartisan to pass. It’s unclear, however, when Johnson and other House Republicans will be willing to stomach that.

“It’s kind of like whiskey. The vast purist whiskey is 218 Republican votes,” Zinke said. “The moment we don’t have it, you start diluting it and pretty soon you’re drinking iced tea.”

The drama in the lower chamber, Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., disputed, isn’t anything new, considering House Republicans’ dysfunction has already been on full display since McCarthy’s pursuit of the speakership that took 15 ballots last year.

“I don’t think yesterday was anything out of the ordinary. I think it’s been obvious,” Womack said, noting that he was still disappointed after last night’s debacle.

At this stage in the game, when asked if Republicans should be hopeful about defending and expanding their majority in the House in the upcoming 2024 elections, Nehls, one of former President Donald Trump’s most vocal allies in the House, appeared to cut his losses: “All we need is Donald Trump.”

But even if the former president defends House Republicans heading into the general election, it’s not clear Americans won’t consider the recent disorder in the Capitol building at the ballot box.

“It wasn’t good,” Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., lamented of House Republicans’ week.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks during a TV news interview at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Jan. 12, 2024.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Johnson and House Republicans suffered back-to-back, embarrassing defeats. What comes next?