Government shutdown: The far right has been feuding with McCarthy for weeks

WASHINGTON (AP) — With little time left to prevent a government shutdown, the House is in a familiar position: effectively paralyzed as conservatives feud with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over matters large and small.

McCarthy has pushed the Republican conference to embrace a short-term funding plan that would also include a sweeping Republican proposal for the southern border. But a small group of hardline conservatives has defied the speaker in a quest to get rid of stopgap funding plans, known as continuing resolutions, even if opposing them means forcing a government shutdown.

It’s left McCarthy at an impasse. He will likely be left with the political damage of a shutdown unless he turns to Democrats for help in passing a bipartisan bill. But working with Democrats would give hard-right Republicans reason to remove him as speaker.

Here’s what to know about the House Republicans’ conflict and where it may be headed:

At its core, the conflict is over how far to the right House Republicans should push legislation — and what level of compromise, if any, is acceptable.

Pragmatic-minded Republicans acknowledge they hold just one chamber of Congress and must negotiate legislation with a Democratic president and the Democratic-held Senate. But some conservatives, organized around the House Freedom Caucus — as well as the score of Republicans who opposed McCarthy’s bid to become speaker — have taken combative stands as they try to disrupt business as usual in Washington.

They are determined to not only slash spending levels but remake the U.S. government, which they view with growing enmity and criticize as “woke and weaponized.” Some conservatives have downplayed the effects of a government shutdown and even contend that it