Mike Johnson trashes Republican Senate plan to end shutdown

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Mar 27, 2026

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House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday angrily rejected the plan passed by the Republican Senate to end the partial government shutdown that has brought chaos to airports.

In a remarkable show of open Republican division, Johnson trashed Republican senators for voting unanimously after midnight to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security. He accused them of caving to Democrats by not including new money for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” said Johnson, waving a copy of the measure. “It can’t be that every Senate Republican read the bill.”

Johnson struggled mightily to avoid blaming Senate Majority Leader John Thune, even though Thune introduced the bill and supported it.

“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” Johnson said, before pointing the finger at Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Johnson pitched his plan for a stopgap spending plan to fund all of DHS, including ICE and Border Patrol, a proposal that Democrats in both the Senate and House have repeatedly rejected.

The House rules committee was expected to debate the plan later Friday, with a vote potentially taking place over the weekend.

With the Senate already gone on recess until April 13, the move effectively means the shutdown will continue for the foreseeable future.

Trump didn’t immediately take a public side in the GOP vs. GOP feud.

The president vowed late Thursday to find a way to pay Transportation Safety Administration screeners who have been forced to work without paychecks for more than a month, spawning chaotic hours-long lines at some airports.

Thune and Senate Republicans apparently took Trump’s proposal as a green light to approve their late-night bill that, like Trump’s plan, would have ended the painful shutdown without forcing Democrats to agree to fund the immigration crackdown.

It’s unclear how the White House can legally pay the airport screeners, or why it couldn’t have done so weeks ago when the shutdown started.