Speaking at an event in his home state of Kentucky on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a frank assessment about the current state of negotiations on funding the government and averting a shutdown before Sept. 30.

“Honestly, it’s a pretty big mess,” the Kentucky Republican said at an event at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Covington, to laughter from the gathered attendees.  

McConnell went on to discuss the accord between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to set spending caps for next year in exchange for raising the debt limit – “Which I supported,” he noted – before recounting that the Republican-controlled House went on to pass spending levels that were below the agreed-upon total.

“Without stating an opinion about that, that’s not gonna be replicated in the Senate,” McConnell added, before predicting that “we will end up” with a short-term measure to fund the government through December “as we struggle to figure out exactly what the government’s spending level is gonna be next year.”

That “struggle,” as McConnell put it, could come in the form of some far-right House Republicans downplaying the threat of a shutdown, with some even embracing it as a means of forcing Democrats and Senate Republicans to enact their priorities.

Speaking to Spectrum News, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said that he’s “not gonna cry tears” if the government shuts down – though that’s not his goal, he added.

“I want to do our job,” Roy said. “If we shut down the government, I'm not going to cry tears, but I'm also not going to seek it, I want to actually try to fund a government to do its job. That's the whole goal.”

Fellow HFC members seemed to take similar stances.

“If a shutdown occurs, then so be it if they’re not gonna stick to what McCarthy agreed to, which is starting on a path of financial security, which we don’t have,” South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said in an interview with The Hill.

“Eighty-five percent or so of the government continues to operate, and most Americans won’t even miss it,” Virginia Rep. Bob Good told The Hill. “And if that’s the leverage that we need to utilize to force the Democrats to accept spending cuts and an end to the harmful policies that are, again, crushing the American people — I mean, then we need to do that.”

Earlier this month, the House Freedom Caucus released a letter saying its members will not support any spending measure unless it includes passage of their border security bill, as well as addressing what they called the “unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department” and ending “the Left’s cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon.”

“Furthermore, we will oppose any attempts by Washington to evert to its old playbook of using a series of short-term funding extensions designed to push Congress up against a December deadline to force the passage of yet another monstruous, budget busting, pork filled lobbyist handout omnibus spending bill at year’s end” – referring to the $1.7 trillion full-year budget signed into law in December of last year, which was passed before Republicans reclaimed the House in January – “and we will use every procedural tool necessary to prevent that outcome.”

They also pledged to “oppose any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill” – which could put them on a collision course with Senate Republicans and some moderates in the House GOP.

Those priorities have little-to-no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, to say nothing of winning President Joe Biden’s signature, setting up yet another showdown. McCarthy can only lose a handful of GOP votes on any legislation, and he risks pushback from far-right Republicans if he cuts a deal with Democrats -- which could lead to a loss of his speakership.

McCarthy has floated a short-term stopgap funding measure to fund the government, putting him in rare alignment with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

"I thought it was a good thing that he recognized we need a [continuing resolution] in September," Schumer said on a press call in mid-August. "I'm supportive of that."

“The only way we're going to avoid a government shutdown is by bipartisan support in both houses,” he added.

The California Republican speaker told Fox News this week that a short-term CR would “make our argument stronger,” warning that “if we shut down, all of government shuts down,” including investigations that House Republicans are leading into President Joe Biden’s family and business dealings.

But with such a narrow majority – and with far-right members of his conference already having proved that they can paralyze the House floor – McCarthy has very little room for error.

“There are enough moderate Republicans in the House, along with Democrats in the House, to pass a spending bill out of the House that they know the Senate Democrats, which control the Senate, would agree to,” Chris Faricy, an associate professor at Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, told Spectrum News.

“But in doing that, you risk a backlash from the Freedom Caucus,” he continued. “And in the past, that backlash might be something that the speaker would kind of endure just to get something through, but Speaker McCarthy is in the position where the Freedom Caucus has teeth, where they could actually bring a vote to oust him from speaker.”

“It really is a delicate situation for the House speaker,” Faricy added.

Spectrum News' Reena Diamante and The Associated Press contributed to this report.