Trump’s fixation on election overhaul bill derails GOP agenda on Capitol Hill

By Sarah Ferris, Alison Main, CNN

(CNN) — A nasty feud over President Donald Trump’s elections overhaul push has further crippled an already-dysfunctional Congress, leaving Republicans unable to move on critical elements of their agenda.

Weeks of tumult fueled by Trump’s demands for the bill forced Speaker Mike Johnson to send his members home early on Thursday because of a GOP rebellion over it on the floor. Johnson may have to cancel next week too with his leadership team privately seeing no way out, sources tell CNN — while members are livid.

“I’m flying home a day early because we couldn’t get our act together,” Rep. Troy Nehls fumed as he departed the Capitol.

Another Republican, outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, was even more blunt, calling Trump’s fixation on the voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill a “distraction” that will cost the party big in the midterms.

“The problem is not the election. We won the damn elections. The problem is, we’re wasting our opportunity that the voters gave us. And the Republicans are going to pay for that in November. It’ll be an absolute shellacking if they don’t wake up,” Massie said.

It all amounts to a quickly escalating political crisis for GOP leaders on the Hill, who have watched the president repeatedly uproot their plans in pursuit of his own agenda. The bill, known as the “SAVE America Act,” doesn’t have the votes to get to Trump’s desk — but the president himself won’t take no for an answer. Leadership’s plan, so far, is to hope that Trump and his MAGA loyalists on the Hill agree to back off their demands in the interest of protecting their slim majorities, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

The rising anxiety comes as the party’s most vulnerable members are begging Trump to stop the drama and show why they should still be in charge after November.

Instead, Trump is refusing to sign his own leaders’ biggest recent achievement in the bipartisan housing bill. He also tanked a compromise with Democrats that would have renewed a critical national security tool. And now, in the last 24 hours, those MAGA loyalists banded together to effectively shut down the House floor and prevent votes on legislation covering defense policy, appropriations and veterans’ healthcare.

Trump’s decision to scuttle the housing bill signing was, to many Republicans, the most infuriating of his recent moves.

“We had bipartisan legislation to address head-on the central issue facing folks across the country now, affordability,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, an independent from California who recently left the GOP, of the housing bill that Trump has so far refused to sign. “And now it’s for the moment been torpedoed, and for what reason? No good reason. So, yeah, that’s annoying to say the least.”

Multiple Republicans, including a Trump advisor, said they believe Trump ultimately will sign the housing bill after the revolt in his party this week. Still, Kiley, like several other of his colleagues, described his level of consternation as “high.”

Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior Republican who rarely criticizes leadership, said of hardliners bringing most House floor action to a halt: “I’m a little pissed off.”

Even a member of House GOP leadership, campaign chief Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, described this week’s infighting over the SAVE Act as “frustrating”

“I mean we all share the president’s frustration with the Senate’s ability to move the SAVE America Act. We all see it as very, very important, but there are other priorities too we’d like to move,” Hudson said of his conservative colleagues who held the floor hostage this week.

In the critical summer stretch before the midterm elections, Trump has torched much of his party’s strategy to hold onto their narrow margins. And the GOP-led Congress has again been thrown into chaos.

In the House, some of Trump’s most vocal supporters — led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida — effectively seized control of the floor as they demanded that the Senate take up Trump’s elections overhaul bill. They are specifically calling for the Senate to blow up the filibuster, something that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his allies have repeatedly said is impossible this term.

Senate GOP leaders, for their part, have made clear they do not have the votes needed to pass the bill in their chamber or the votes to abolish the filibuster as Trump has demanded.

Johnson has continued to stand behind Trump’s elections overhaul push, while deferring to Thune on his chamber’s procedures. (The House has passed prior versions of the elections bill, though not the president’s most recent demands, including restrictions on mail-in voting).

But he has been unable to defuse the floor protest by Luna and others. It was expected to be a major topic of discussion for Johnson’s meeting with Trump at the White House on Thursday afternoon.

“We passed the SAVE Act three times in the House. We’ll do it again. We’re working on that, and I’m going to talk with the president, about these issues and how to get the agenda moving again, and, and it’s gonna be very productive. Looking forward to it,” Johnson said.

It’s a familiar — and frustrating — episode for many House Republicans who’ve watched their hardliner colleagues use their slim margins to make demands before.

“Are you asking me, do I think the House Freedom Caucus is a rational actor?” quipped GOP centrist Rep. Zach Nunn. “ I think we all know the answer to that.”

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CNN’s Annie Grayer, Lauren Fox, Ellis Kim and Adam Cancryn contributed.