House recesses after Defense bill, government funding plan implode

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders on Thursday sent the chamber into recess, likely dashing hopes of passing a bill to fund the government in the coming days.

The schedule change was an embarrassing failure for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Californian who needs to unite his fractured Republican caucus to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.

Earlier in the day, the House failed to pass a measure that would have set the rules for debate on a Pentagon funding bill, which had been expected to come to the House floor for a final vote later Thursday.

A rules vote typically serves as a dress rehearsal for final votes, giving leadership a sense of where support stands.

Pentagon funding bills are traditionally approved by wide margins.

But the failure of the rules bill sent a stark message to House Republican leadership that their caucus was not prepared yet to come together.

For much of the day Thursday, Republicans in both the House and Senate held their breath to see what McCarthy and his lieutenants would do next.

“We want to avoid this shutdown however we can,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told CNBC on Thursday.

“McCarthy is trying to work with his members to get the most conservative bill that they can pass, that can also be passed in the Senate,” Mullin said.

“If we lapse in appropriations, a whole lot of very important things with the U.S. government begin a process of shuttering their services, and it will impact people,” Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., a key House appropriator, told reporters Wednesday evening as he left a GOP caucus meeting.

During that meeting, Republicans had largely agreed on the rough outlines of a CR that would slash topline government funding well below the levels McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to last summer during high-stakes debt ceiling…