Speaking to reporters briefly Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that he’s standing by the budget deal he struck with Democrats and the White House despite pressure from members of his far-right flank to back away from the agreement.

What You Need To Know

  • House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday he's standing by the budget deal he struck with Democrats and the White House

  • He did not offer a path forward on how to overcome dissent within in his own conference to prevent a partial government shutdown in a week’s time

  • The Senate, meanwhile, is moving forward with a bill to avoid a lapse in funding

  • Johnson's statement came one day after members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus met with the speaker to urge him to back out of the deal; he met with a group of House Republicans on Friday, largely moderate members of his conference, who encouraged him to stay the course and honor the deal he struck with Democrats

“After weeks of hard-fought negotiations, we achieved a strong top-line agreement that allows our appropriations committee and all those who work on this to complete the appropriations process,” Johnson said in a statement to reporters on Friday. “It’s an important part of keeping the government running.”

“Our topline agreement remains,” Johnson later said of the $1.6 trillion agreement that he and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced last weekend. “We are getting our next steps together, and we are working toward a robust appropriations process. So stay tuned for all that.”

Johnson praised the agreement, saying it “includes hard-won concessions to cut more billions … from the IRS giveaway and the COVID-era slush funds, it replaces accounting gimmicks from the prior [Fiscal Responsibility Act] agreement, and it brings Congress much closer to regular order, which is our big commitment here.”

“In keeping up with my commitment to bring members into the legislative process, I’ve spoken and received feedback this week from many members all across the Republican conference. That’s a very important part of this,” he continued. “When I became speaker, I committed to decentralizing the speaker’s Speaker’s office and making this a member-driven process.”

The speaker did not take questions after delivering his statement. He did not offer a path forward on how to overcome dissent within in his own conference to prevent a partial government shutdown in a week’s time. There are two government funding deadlines: Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.

The Senate, on the other hand, is moving forward with a bill to avoid a lapse in funding.

Johnson earlier Friday met with a group of House Republicans, largely moderate members of his conference, who encouraged him to stay the course and honor the deal he struck with Democrats.

“We’re here to bolster him up,” said Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a prominent centrist in the House Republican conference.

"We've got 10 or 12 loudmouths who try to take over the whole conference," Bacon said to reporters. "We're tired of it ... We're ready to govern.”

“I just can’t imagine the House wants to relive the madness,” Arkansas Rep. French Hill said.

"This concept of trying to break a deal that was negotiated, it’s a foreign concept," said Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla. “What you would be asking is for the speaker to basically break his word and lie. That’s just something you can’t ask him to do.”

But other members of his conference appeared to be less than thrilled. Members of the far-right Freedom Caucus have pushed for further spending cuts, while some GOP lawmakers are also looking to add strict border security provisions to any spending agreement.

“I think it’s a bad move, I think it’s a bad top-line deal,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, whose members tried to sway Johnson to change his mind on Thursday.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went as far as to threaten to remove Johnson from the speakership, much like how a group of far-right lawmakers moved to oust Kevin McCarthy in October of last year for reaching a deal with Democrats on averting a government shutdown. 

“That is a failing, losing strategy and I will never support it," she said. "I'll fight it as much as possible. Even if I have to go so far to vacate the chair. And there's others that agree with me.”