Leader of GOP hardliners threatens to stop budget bill
United States Representative Scott Perry (pictured front), the chair of the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives, said on Tuesday that the budget agreement reached between the White House and House GOP leadership "totally fails to deliver." The Freedom Caucus "will do everything in our power to stop" the deal from materializing, he told reporters.
Earlier in the day, NBC News reported that the GOP lawmaker group discussed whether to threaten House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with forcing a vote to remove him from the post over their disapproval of the agreement. At a Monday phone call where those comments were made, Perry reportedly said that such a move would be premature.
The deal between McCarthy and President Joe Biden will likely have the best chance of passing Congress by gaining support from moderate members of both parties, as a number of conservative legislators from the GOP, as well as several left-leaning lawmakers from the Democratic Party, have already separately expressed their opposition to the agreement.