Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday stood by his recent endorsement of nemesis Kevin McCarthy for chair of the Republican National Committee — even as some of his Republican colleagues suggested it was a joke.

“The tweet speaks for itself,” Gaetz repeatedly told POLITICO on Wednesday when asked about the endorsement he posted on social media Tuesday night.

The former speaker’s name was floated on X, formerly known as Twitter, as a “dark horse” option to replace Ronna McDaniel as Republican National Committee chair, who is rumored to be stepping down. But Gaetz threw a curveball on Tuesday night after posting a glowing endorsement for McCarthy as RNC chair.

“I fully endorse Kevin McCarthy for RNC Chair. Kevin is well organized and a very high-revenue fundraiser,” Gaetz posted on X. “He will also be well-liked by the RNC Committee.”

It would be a stunning about-face for Gaetz to endorse McCarthy for anything — let alone head of the RNC during an election year. The Florida Republican led the effort to oust McCarthy as speaker last fall, inspiring the California Republican to say Gaetz belongs in jail.

McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.

But some of Gaetz’s colleagues weren’t convinced the Florida representative’s endorsement was so genuine.

“My initial thought was Matt sure knows how to troll,” fellow Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds said in regards to the endorsement. “I thought it was tongue in cheek.”

“I noted a twinge of sarcasm in that comment,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who voted with Gaetz to oust McCarthy of the speakership.

What was Gaetz’s rationale for his endorsement? “The RNC Chair doesn’t make any policy decisions, set any agenda, or negotiate against Democrats, ever,” Gaetz said in his post — a hint at some of his reasons for leading the fight to remove McCarthy from the speakership.

He added, “Kevin would be terrific.”

Other Florida Republicans thought, regardless of Gaetz’s intentions, McCarthy would be a great candidate for the position. The former speaker is known for his fundraising abilities — something that brought him to the top House position. Meanwhile many in the party have soured on McDaniel for low fundraising numbers.

“That’s a tip of the hat to Gaetz to get somebody with new energy, new perspective and a proven track record of being just a massive fundraiser,” Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) said, adding that McCarthy helped him get elected. “If you’re looking for somebody to build a majority, I think Kevin McCarthy would be the guy.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said McCarthy should do whatever he wants to do next but that he “did a heck of a job as speaker.” Diaz-Balart had not seen the post from Gaetz, but only had one response to the endorsement.

“That’s fascinating,” Diaz-Balart said with a smile “That is fascinating.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to push ahead with a new foreign aid plan Wednesday, putting new pressure on the two top Republicans on Capitol Hill — both of whom are facing fresh questions about their leadership after a series of high-profile flops this week.

Schumer’s move comes after a Senate border security plan, negotiated over the course of months in a bid to unlock aid to Ukraine and Israel, collapsed just days after its release. According to a Senate Democratic aide briefed on his plans, Schumer will call a vote to open debate on a standalone aid bill if a procedural vote on the border plan fails as expected Wednesday.

The move threatens to again expose a divide inside the GOP between traditionalist defense hawks who firmly support Ukraine aid and a more isolationist wing aligned with former President Donald Trump.

Caught in the middle are Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who are both reeling from embarrassing setbacks.

House Republicans on Tuesday failed to muster the necessary votes for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or a $17.6 billion aid package for Israel, once again putting a spotlight on Johnson’s inability to shepherd his slim majority.

Meanwhile, the border deal’s collapse in the Senate has McConnell’s critics — and, privately, even some of his allies — casting new doubt on the veteran leader’s once formidable ability to corral his diverse conference.

A lion in winter?

An outspoken proponent of Ukraine aid, McConnell embraced a push last year to link tough new border policies to the foreign-aid supplemental, thus buying conservative support. He deputized conservative Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) to cut a deal.

But the deal Lankford cinched was torn to tatters in the span of 48 hours thanks to opposition from Trump, McConnell’s political nemesis. Most GOP senators — including some of McConnell’s closest allies — are expected to vote today against even debating it.

If it fails as expected, McConnell will be faced with a new challenge: Schumer’s plan is to quickly move to launch debate on a foreign aid bill that omits the border agreement.

McConnell has indicated he is likely to back such a package, viewing it as essential to backstop the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s force. But it is in serious question whether he can manage — or will even try — to bring the rest of his conference along.

The backdrop is stark: McConnell’s longtime critics have been emboldened by the border deal’s collapse. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called it a “betrayal” and is demanding new leadership. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) posted a meme mocking McConnell, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has explicitly called for McConnell to step down.

“It’s not James Lankford’s fault. It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. Added Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.): “These were real tactical errors that he’s made — and, you know, I think his public opinion polls show it.”

McConnell fired back in an exclusive interview with POLITICO. He argues that his critics “had their shot” to vote him out as leader a year ago and failed. He blamed them for the party’s confounding, boomeranging strategy over the border. And he argued that solving the problems they identified requires working with Democrats.

“The reason we’ve been talking about the border is because they wanted to, the persistent critics,” McConnell said. “You can’t pass a bill without dealing with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.”

McConnell, of course, has outflanked and outlasted his critics for years, and he retains the confidence of most Senate Republicans, who can’t oust him mid-term even if they want to.

Still, one senior GOP aide who admires the longtime leader said the crescendo in whispers is unmistakable: “Can Mitch continue doing this?”

“He’s been an incredibly consequential and strategic leader, always thinking about where the conference needs to be and looking around the corners,” this person said. “None of that’s happening. It’s not the same.”

The collapse of the border deal and the reaction from his critics on the MAGA right have made obvious that there is no tenable way for McConnell to remain leader if Trump is elected. And even with Trump as GOP nominee, it will be exceedingly difficult.

“That’s oil and water,” Johnson said. “That wouldn’t work very well.”

Johnson’s bad day

Johnson, meanwhile, pushed forward Tuesday with the impeachment vote in the face of numerous red flags, expressing confidence throughout the day yesterday that he had the votes to oust Mayorkas.

But those assurances evaporated as Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) — a respected former Marine officer and committee chair — made good on threats to oppose the articles, joining Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who have long argued that policy differences aren’t grounds for impeachment.

Johnson and the rest of the GOP leadership team, meanwhile, didn’t have a firm grasp on their whip count. They appeared to assume that Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) — who’d been in the ER for surgery yesterday — wouldn’t show. But in a dramatic moment, he was wheeled into the chamber wearing scrubs to cast the decisive vote.

That spurred a last-gasp effort to strongarm Gallagher into changing his vote, with fellow Republicans warning the Wisconsin Republican of serious blowback from the base. It didn’t work.

Tuesday’s vote isn’t the end of the Mayorkas impeachment saga: Republicans say they’ll try again when they have full attendance. Even so, it was a high-profile setback for the new speaker that was compounded by the decision to immediately press forward with a vote on the Israel aid bill, which failed to garner the necessary two-thirds margin under suspension of the rules, 250-180.

Holding a failed vote in this case might have been politically defensible, to highlight Democrats’ opposition to the Israel funding. But that message got lost amid the botched impeachment narrative.

The problems for Johnson might only snowball from here. The Mayorkas vote is casting serious doubt on any effort to impeach President Joe Biden, which has been a top priority for the House GOP’s MAGA wing. And, in about two weeks, Johnson will have to start muscling government funding bills across the floor — which is sure to exacerbate tensions with right-wingers.

Johnson, who emerged as speaker after the hard right revolted against predecessor Kevin McCarthy, has benefited in his first three months on the job from the sense that there’s no one else in the House GOP who could do any better than he has.

But if he has any more days like Tuesday, that idea might change fast.

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Conservative hardliners once celebrated Mitch McConnell for wrestling the federal judiciary to the right and thwarting progressive hopes.

Now he is under open attack from the right for even trying to work with Democrats on the border.

The Senate GOP leader is facing internal resistance not seen in more than a year as Republicans descend into discord over two issues they once demanded be linked: border security and the war in Ukraine.

McConnell, now nearing his 82nd birthday, is determined to fund the Ukrainian war effort, a push his allies have depicted as legacy-defining. But now that his party is set on Wednesday to reject a bipartisan trade of tougher border policies for war funding, his far-right critics are speaking out more loudly: Several held a press conference Tuesday where they denounced his handling of the border talks, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) calling on McConnell to step down.

In an interview, McConnell rejected the criticism and said his antagonists fail to recognize the reality of divided government.

“I’ve had a small group of persistent critics the whole time I’ve been in this job. They had their shot,” McConnell said, referring to Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) challenge to his leadership in 2022.

“The reason we’ve been talking about the border is because they wanted to, the persistent critics,” he added. “You can’t pass a bill without dealing with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.”

Despite that pragmatism, McConnell’s job is only getting harder. If he runs for another term in leadership next year, a tougher fight than Scott gave him seems almost inevitable.

That is in part because of Donald Trump, whom McConnell barely acknowledges after criticizing his role in the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. The former president played a leading role in killing the border deal and has called consistently for McConnell’s ouster. And at this time next year, Trump could well be back in the White House.

More and more of Senate Republicans’ internal strife is seeping out into public view, exposing years-old beefs that are still simmering. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted a fundraising link asking donors to “kill this border bill” in the middle of a closed-door GOP meeting on Monday and demanded “new leadership,” while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) memed McConnell as Charlie Brown whiffing on an attempt to kick a football held by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.).

“I’ve been super unhappy since this started,” Johnson said in an interview. “Leader McConnell completely blew this.”

Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson helped squash the border bill’s prospects in the House while Ron Johnson, Lee, Cruz, Vance and Scott pummeled it on TV and social media. The intensity of that assault turned many GOP senators sour on a border security deal that would have amounted to the most conservative immigration bill backed by a Democratic president in a generation — a bill they once said was the key to unlocking Ukraine aid.

Though McConnell touted the work of Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and the bill’s endorsement by the Border Patrol union, he conceded what was obvious by Monday night: This legislation is dead.

“The reason we ended up where we are is the members decided, since it was never going to become law, they didn’t want to deal with it,” McConnell said in the interview. “I don’t know who is at fault here, in terms of trying to cast public blame.”

At Tuesday’s party meeting, Cruz told McConnell that the border deal was indefensible, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) questioned why the GOP would walk away from it, according to two people familiar with the meeting. That followed a Monday evening private meeting where Johnson got into a near-shouting match with Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of several senators who has tried to rebut Trump’s influence on the party.

Young played down the spat afterward: “Ron and I have a very good relationship. We can be very candid with one another.”

McConnell’s loud critics are among those most responsible for raising opposition to the border deal, attacking its provisions while the text was being finalized. They raised such a ruckus that none of McConnell’s potential successors as leader — Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and John Thune (R-S.D.) — offered to support it.

McConnell can’t be ejected spontaneously like a House speaker, meaning his job is safe until the end of the year. He also has major sway over the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that may have to help Cruz, Scott and other Republicans win reelection.

And McConnell is not without defenders. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said any attempt to blame McConnell for the border crackup is “a bit misplaced.”

Indeed, McConnell was OK with just approving foreign aid back in the fall, but agreed to link it to border security after rank-and-file Republicans grew eager to extract concessions from Democrats in order to get Ukraine money.

“It’s not James’ fault, he did the best he could under the circumstances. It’s not Mitch’s fault,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

The historical record holds plenty of quotes from McConnell’s current critics asking for stronger border policy during the Trump administration. Many of them now have since changed their tune to say Biden doesn’t need new laws at all to enforce border security.

“We all wanted to see border security. And I think a lot of our members were demanding that in exchange for the rest of the funding. That’s an issue our conference needs to be aware of,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the No. 4 leader. “The conference wanted border security.”

The animosity McConnell now faces from Ron Johnson, Lee and others isn’t new either: They’ve questioned Senate GOP leadership’s decisions for years.

Ron Johnson’s long been a thorn in McConnell’s side for years, particular after many Republicans abandoned his reelection bid in 2016. Cruz has sparred with McConnell since getting to the Senate in 2013, Lee frequently breaks with leadership and a number of newer GOP senators voted for Scott over McConnell in 2022.

One GOP senator, granted anonymity to assess the situation candidly, said that the new wave of attacks could be happening because McConnell’s opponents sense weakness — or just out of “personal pique” over years-old disagreements.

“For three months it’s been nothing but border and Ukraine, border and Ukraine, border and Ukraine. I don’t know how many speeches I’ve heard … and now all of a sudden, it’s: ‘We’re not going to do that,’” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another of the McConnell critics. “It just seems like total chaos to me.”

Either way, the 180 among many Republicans is evidence of a major drift away from McConnell’s style of Republicanism and toward Trump’s. McConnell hasn’t talked to Trump since the Jan. 6 riot and tried to turn the party in a surprisingly deal-centric direction during the first two years of President Joe Biden’s presidency.

Just two years ago, debt ceiling increases, gun safety and infrastructure laws passed with McConnell’s blessing — all a reflection of his view that protecting the filibuster requires working with Democrats on bipartisan bills.

Now the reality is that Trump, the likely nominee, doesn’t want a deal that Republicans set out to secure four months ago. Deal-making without Trump’s blessing appears impossible, and that’s a challenging dynamic for the longtime GOP leader.

“This wasn’t good for him. This wasn’t good for any of us,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) of McConnell, whom he backed in 2022. “And I’m not gonna say he’s the total cause of it, but we got to have a better plan. This didn’t work out for us.”

Ursula Perano contributed to this report.