GOP leaders forced to abandon signature veterans benefits bill amid intra-party dispute

By Sarah Ferris, Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson suffered another humiliating political defeat at the hands of his own party on Thursday when he was forced to abandon plans to pass a veterans benefits bill designed to be one of the GOP’s big legislative wins before the midterms.

Just minutes before the bill was slated to come to the floor, Johnson and his team were forced to pull it from the schedule as more than a half-dozen holdouts refused to back the measure.

The bill has been in trouble for weeks. It’s been a major source of tension in the military community, with powerful groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans opposed to the measure because it reduces certain disability coverage — while others, like there American Legion, have backed it.

But Johnson and his deputies decided to go ahead with the vote. On Thursday, those concerns persisted and Johnson attempted to salvage it at the eleventh hour, holding a meeting just off the floor with a group of GOP moderates who had concerns about the bill but they could not get the votes needed.

The defeat for Johnson is the latest in a string of complications for leadership. Only days earlier, Johnson had struck a truce with GOP hardliners to reopen the floor after they’d effectively seized control and prevented the speaker from moving key bills for two weeks. Now, they are leaving Washington on Thursday without a clear path forward on the veteran benefits bill.

Those GOP centrists, among others, have opposed one piece of the sprawling measure — the plan to pay for expanded benefits by limiting payouts for future recipients’ disability claims. Critics say it would effectively eliminate compensation for tinnitus and sleep apnea from the government’s list of standalone disabilities to help pay for the expansion in other benefits.

And inside the room, the conversation grew so tense that one member, Rep. Zach Nunn, told his colleague, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, to stop talking mid-conversation, according to two sources in the room. Luna — who has drawn the ire of the GOP for holding up the floor in recent weeks over an unrelated election bill — had been explaining why she wasn’t backing down from calling for the bill to be sent back to the committee level.

Luna ended up leaving the meeting, the sources said.

“As a combat vet, I’ve worked with veterans to deliver. APL walked in late, threw a temper tantrum, and then left. She’s interested in clicks, we’re working for disabled vets, military spouses, and suicide prevention — that’s what matters,” Nunn said in a statement to CNN.

Luna later explained that she would not vote for the veterans bill because it took away certain medical benefits for service members.

“I’m not going to vote for it because I think that it’s bad to cut sleep apnea and also tinnitus and then bundle it with other things. I don’t think that it makes sense,” Luna said.

Luna posted to X Thursday afternoon, “As a veteran, and more importantly as the representative of a veteran-heavy district, I will never vote to cut veterans’ benefits, nor will I vote to prevent current service members from filing claims in the future. Today, I found myself at the center of an unhinged meltdown and was told to ‘stop talking’ simply for pointing out how wrong it is to cut veterans’ benefits.”

Another one of the GOP defectors, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, was clear he would not change his mind: “I’m not changing my vote.”

“I love the bill 90% of it, but I don’t like dripping away benefits for veterans to help other veterans. You don’t separate people out that way and you also make sure veterans groups should be behind us,” Van Drew said.

The collapse of the veterans bill is a bad omen for Johnson in one of his final weeks before the House’s lengthy August recess, where he and his team are trying to muscle through a massive $95 billion emergency funding bill, most of which would go to the Pentagon.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Thursday that the House GOP effort to pass a budget bill for defense, agriculture and state grants to promote voter ID requirements carries strategic risks.

The legislation would move through a complex process known as budget reconciliation that would allow the bill to pass in the Senate without Democratic votes. But Thune cautioned the unique rules governing passage of the bill in the Senate might subject Republicans to a slew of politically sensitive votes close to the midterm elections and allow Democrats to petition the Senate parliamentarian to strike key GOP priorities from the bill.

“It’s a risky proposition,” Thune told reporters. “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

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CNN’s Ted Barrett contributed