Senate and House GOP leaders no longer on same page

The Hill -  Friction is emerging in the once unified GOP relationship between Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.).

The two congressional leaders have been visibly out of sync in recent days on a bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and on an electronic records seizure law that could enrich senators while drawing a hostile reaction from many House Republicans.

The dynamic is bringing classic House-Senate tensions out into the open, and it’s putting the Speaker in a position of having to defer to the upper chamber — even though it is Johnson who has a more publicly close relationship with President Trump.

And it comes as the two leaders face serious challenges on other legislative issues, including how to address ObamaCare subsidies that expire at the end of the year; passage of the National Defense Authorization Act; and another looming government funding deadline in January that could lead to a second shutdown in a matter of months.

Johnson told reporters Wednesday night that he has “a very good relationship” with Thune. 

“We have different processes and procedures in the two chambers, and sometimes we all get frustrated by that, but it’s not personal,” Johnson said.

After a rebellion in the House forced Johnson to bring the Epstein Files Transparency Act to a vote Wednesday, Johnson spent nearly 20 minutes in a press conference in the hours ahead of the vote detailing his concerns with the bill, even though it got a face-saving endorsement from Trump. Johnson argued it needed fixes for how it handled sensitive victim information and the possible release of untrue allegations about other individuals in relation to the financier and sex offender.