Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is facing his GOP conference in person on Wednesday morning for the first time since congressional leaders released a bipartisan deal to avert a government shutdown. 

Lawmakers are facing a Jan. 19 deadline to fund some parts of the government – historically less controversial appropriations concerning military construction and Veterans Affairs; Agriculture; Energy and Water; Transportation and Housing and Urban Development – and a Feb. 2 deadline for the remaining agencies, including the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security.

But Johnson announced over the weekend that he and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had come to an agreement to extend those respective deadlines to March 1 and March 8 to give negotiators more time to make a deal on funding the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2024.

The path forward on government funding is likely to be a main topic of discussion at House Republicans’ next weekly conference meeting, multiple sources speculated to Fox News Digital.

The meeting is currently expected for Wednesday morning despite weather conditions forcing the House to cancel its Tuesday evening votes.

One House GOP aide who spoke with Fox News Digital predicted ‘a showdown’ within the party over the short-term spending bill called a continuing resolution (CR). The aide told Fox News Digital they anticipate more resistance among the GOP than past CR votes have seen.

When Johnson last passed a CR in November, it saw 93 Republican defections. He pledged at the time to be ‘done’ with short-term CRs, a declaration met with enthusiasm by GOP lawmakers in the House.

The latest short-term extension is still likely to pass with support from both Republicans and Democrats, but not without criticism from Johnson’s right flank – criticism he’s likely to get a preview of Wednesday morning when GOP lawmakers huddle behind closed doors to discuss what’s next for their conference.

‘There is nothing new or novel about surrendering now and promising to fight tomorrow. Wasn’t the laddered CR supposed to provide some sort of leverage?’ Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X Tuesday.

‘Sadly, an agreement seems to have been made by 4-corners again, in violation of many [House GOP] promises,’ Davidson said.

The Freedom Caucus itself released a statement calling the deal a ‘surrender.’

‘The [House GOP] is planning to pass a short-term spending bill continuing Pelosi levels with Biden policies, to buy time to pass longer-term spending bills at Pelosi levels with Biden policies,’ the group said.

As clarity increases at the top of the ticket, the real prize is winning in November. I’m a conservative Republican who served in the U.S. Congress for more than eight years. While I’m optimistic, I’m also realistic. Here are the five reasons Democrats are doing the right things to win in November.

GOTV

It sounds obvious, and it is, but getting out the vote (GOTV) is paramount. As others have said in the past, the world is ruled by those who show up. Realistically, only a portion of our friends and neighbors will actually take the time to vote.

Democrats have the overwhelming advantage because they lean heavily on unions – labor unions, public employee unions, etc. They’ve also figured out how to funnel mass amounts of money to nonprofits – many of them ostensibly nonpartisan. Some of it is legally sketchy given how much Democrats have politicized these tax-exempt entities, but they get away with it. 

How many right-leaning organizations do you know that actively work to get out the vote for Republicans? Even the Republican National Committee has little to show for this type of sustained effort.

ENTHUSIASM

It has long been said that enthusiasm wins elections. It’s still true. Democrats believe they can lean on abortion and ‘democracy’ to fire people up to vote. That formula certainly worked in 2022, when Republicans expected a big red wave. Democrats use ballot initiatives, such as abortion rights and the legalization of marijuana, to draw nontraditional voters out to the polls en masse. 

Democrats also excel at scaring voters with falsehoods. Their favorite trope is Republicans wanting to destroy Social Security and Medicare while throwing grandma off a cliff. Likewise, they continue to promise Donald Trump will do all the scary things President Biden is already doing – with little awareness of the irony. 

They say Trump will start wars, crash the economy, govern as a dictator, and use lawfare to destroy his political opponents. That extreme level of projection seems to be lost on much of the mainstream media. 

MEDIA PRESENCE

Speaking of the media, there is no doubt the traditional media continues to buoy up Democratic candidates and issues, while demonizing Republicans and conservatives. The propaganda is overwhelming if you know what’s really going on.

With some exceptions, the biggest media organizations still favor Democrats and blatantly suppress Republican or conservative messaging. Try finding an article from The Federalist in a Google search. Leftist talking points are everywhere, but intelligent arguments from conservative publications are mysteriously missing from the search results.

PROMISES

There is a structural advantage when one party gets to play Santa Claus with other people’s money and the other has to be the Grinch. Responsible spending will never be as popular as free money. When the core of your belief is that all problems can be solved by giving government more money, the biggest spender wins. It is enticing to a significant number of people to count on unlimited government support.

Remember in ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ when Pedro was advised to simply promise everything would be better by voting for him? He didn’t need to take a specific stance on a particular issue. He just needed to tell everybody he would solve their problems. He won handily. That formula works.

FROM THE HEART

It’s not good enough to just be right on the issues. The most successful candidates are the ones who speak from their heart, explaining why they believe what they believe. Democrats have traditionally convinced voters that because they are willing to spend more, they care more. Republican and conservative success will come when candidates get better at emphasizing that voters can spend their money more effectively than government can. Do it with sincerity and the authenticity shines through.

There is a saying in politics, ‘When you’re explaining, you are losing.’ Republicans are really good at talking about labor participation rates, unemployment rates, and technical details about how Iranian funding of the Houthis slows down 15% of the world shipping in the Red Sea. Important, but less important than showing people you care enough to make their lives better.  

In a constitutional republic, which is what we are in the United States, people are elected to dive deep into the issues. Republicans would do well not to cede the ‘we care more’ ground to the Democrats. If not, the Democrats will exceed expectations yet again.

Journalism is in chaos. It is an industry where only a tiny percentage of people dare hold different political opinions and more than 60% of journalists think the news business is going in the ‘wrong direction.’ Don’t take my word for it. Take theirs.

More than 1,600 journalists responded to a survey from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications and the results are damning. Only 3.4% of U.S. journalists claim to be Republicans, with another 36.4% saying they’re Democrats. That’s more than 10 times more Democrats than Republicans. Or at least the ones who will admit they are on the left. 

More than half (51.7%) call themselves ‘independents’ and another 8.5% ‘other.’ Journalists have been getting these survey questions for more than 50 years and they have grown savvier. Many carefully list themselves in those other categories to avoid being called biased. So, just keep that 3.4% number in mind. Out of all journalists. 

Or let’s give the real number – 96.6% are not Republicans. 

That’s how Russiagate and Russian collusion get rammed down the throats of the American public like the scandal really happened. (Hint: It didn’t.) That’s how they cover for a president who is barely coherent much of the time and lies constantly about his family, his accomplishments and his past. (Hey Potus, say hi to Corn Pop for me.) 

Remember when the press tried to tally then-President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘lies?’ For President Biden, they call them misstatements or ignore them entirely. As Sgt. Muldoon explained in the John Wayne movie, ‘Green Berets,’ ‘Well… that’s newspapers for you, ma’am. You could fill volumes with what you don’t read in them.’

It’s only gotten worse since actor Aldo Ray read those lines. In 1971, one-fourth of U.S. journalists were Republican. In 50 years, journalism has essentially purged any political opposition in its ranks. And we get the result. 

Ninety-six-percent agreement is how the press tries to convince you that the border isn’t a problem when even Democrat mayors are screaming that it is. And their cities are only hit with a tiny portion of what red states have had to endure. 

And this is how you get an elite press that pretends ordinary Americans can afford food, rent and mortgages, when those same Americans tell you they can’t and 96% are worried about the economy. It’s so bad that one-fourth of Americans are ‘doom spending’ money they don’t have to compensate.

The 96% make no effort to cover the many failures of the Biden administration. The administration backed Ukraine, but not well enough for it to win. Our military is under near constant attack in the Mideast, and we barely respond as trade routes are conquered by terrorists.

Because the 96% are firmly in the Democrat camp. Heck, they went out of their way to elect President Biden and are trying to do so again.

Most journalists won’t even admit the news industry’s problems. If you dig further into this enlightening study, only 21.8% think any sort of ‘political orientation’ diversity is needed in their newsrooms. And it’s unclear if that means they think their outlets need to even be more liberal or more conservative. To emphasize that point, only 12.7% think ‘perceived bias and opinion journalism’ is a problem.

Journalism has become a dad joke. What’s the difference between ignorance and indifference? They don’t know and they don’t care.

The problems with our journo elite don’t stop there. Whites make up less than 60% of the U.S. population, but 82% of the news media. That doesn’t bother them either. Only about one-fourth of those studied think racial diversity is an issue in their newsrooms. 

More than eight out of 10 journalists said performing a government ‘watchdog’ role is important. Ironic for a field that didn’t notice when the secretary of defense went AWOL and disappeared for several days for surgery. 

Nearly all journalists (96.4%) have college degrees, a huge change from the 1982 study, about the time I started my news career when it was about 70%. Journalism used to be considered a trade that you could learn. Now, it’s a field that requires expensive college indoctrination, so they are unbothered by the biases they encounter every day.

As journalism has become an elite field, it has abandoned its role in serving the public. Local journalism has dried up or has almost no resources. National journalism is dominated by a few outlets like The Washington Post and New York Times and even the Post just had buyouts. Only 7.4% of those surveyed think reaching the widest audience is ‘extremely important.’

So much for the dad joke about newspapers being black and white and read all over. 

It’s no wonder why Americans have lost faith in the news media. And it will get substantially worse this election. The 96% have spoken.

The Senate will vote on a resolution Tuesday afternoon by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that could potentially freeze U.S. aid to Israel unless the Biden administration reports to Congress within 30 days about whether Israel committed human rights violations during its war with Hamas.  

Sanders’ resolution is based on the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 that requires the State Department to examine the human rights conduct of nations receiving U.S. aid. The law prohibits U.S. aid to any foreign government ‘which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.’

Upon receiving the report, Congress will have the authority to reduce or end aid to Israel if violations are found. Any subsequent votes to modify security assistance will need a simple majority for approval. 

The resolution is reportedly opposed by the Biden administration, which has urged Congress to pass $60 billion more in aid to Israel, and many Democrats. But those in Congress who are part of the left’s more progressive flank have voiced support for a cease-fire and halting U.S. aid to Israel. 

‘This is a humanitarian cataclysm, and it is being done with American bombs and money. We need to face up to that fact – and then we need to end our complicity in those actions,’ Sanders previously said in a statement. 

The resolution, which faces an uphill battle that requires a simple majority needed to pass in the upper chamber, would request the administration’s 30-day report to detail steps taken by the U.S. government to promote human rights in Israel, limit risks to civilians, discourage harmful practices, and disassociate from such practices. Part of the resolution reaffirms Israel’s right to respond and defend itself against the deadly attack carried out by Hamas.

It would also require an assessment of whether ‘extraordinary circumstances’ exist to justify the continuation of security assistance aid for Israel, and if so, details of the circumstances that require ongoing funding. 

Many humanitarian organizations and the United Nations rely heavily on death toll data published by Hamas-run ministries in Gaza, which estimate more than 20,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has prompted unprecedented destruction in the tiny coastal enclave and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and pushed more than a quarter into starvation, according to the U.N.

Israel blames Hamas for the high death toll, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.

After Hamas’ attack on Israel, 1,200 people were killed and around 250 people were taken hostage. As of this month, Israel believes more than 130 hostages are still in captivity in the Gaza Strip. 

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress remain divided on the war. While some support more aid to Israel, others have called for a complete cease-fire to limit civilian casualties. Republicans have remained largely united in backing Israel. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.