Mission accomplished, but wounds remain: the 21 GOP representatives who voted against Johnson and Trump

Donald Trump was able to end the second government shutdown of his second term with his signature late Tuesday night. An accomplished goal that left the four-day paralysis of government funding almost anecdotal, but it left deep and visible wounds within the Republican Party.

Despite calls for unity from the president himself and the speaker Mike Johnson, who turned the vote on the Senate measures to end the shutdown into a test of internal cohesion, 21 lawmakers made the existing divisions clear with their “no” votes.

Alongside Thomas Massie, Trump's bête noire in the House in the House and a frequent vote against the president’s agenda, two dozen other hard-line conservatives from the orbit of the House Freedom Caucus refused to back the package, arguing it would do Democrats a favor instead of leveraging their stronger position on Capitol Hill.

The 21 'rebels

The remaining rebels are: Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Josh Brecheen, Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, Kat Cammack, Eli Crane, Byron Donalds, Randy Fine, Brandon Gill, Anna Paulina Luna, Cory Mills, Andy Ogles, Scott Perry, Chip Roy, David Schweikert, Keith Self, Victoria Spartz, Greg Steube and William Timmons.

Some, like Massie himself, Chip Roy or Anna Paulina Luna put as the main cause for their "no" vote the refusal of conservative leaders to link the package to reopen the government to the SAVE Act: "And most importantly… BLOCKED: the inclusion of the SAVE Act to protect our elections from illegal aliens—a top priority for conservatives," Massie wrote on X.

"A fool's bet"

Burlison also publicly expressed frustration with the passage of the package, lamenting that a victory had been handed to Schumer: "The fact that Chuck Schumer is able to somehow get Republicans to pass a version that includes all of their stuff—but only a two-week funding measure for Homeland Security, I think, is a fool’s bet," according to a report by Fox News.

For her part, Rep. Lauren Boebert justified her rejection of the situation in which the approved regulations leave funding to ICE and DHS up in the air, jeopardizing main lines of the Republican agenda:

"I voted NO on the 5-bill minibus. Republicans have the trifecta and we should fund DHS at Trump levels for strong border security—not continue the Biden-Schumer budget."

"We have to start negotiating from a position of power"

The Republican denounced that the approved package "includes $1.3 billion in funds earmarked to finance woke centers that perform late-term abortions & child transgender surgeries," while leaving out projects vital to her.

Tim Burchett also lamented in a video shared on his social networks that conservatives' approval of the bill means squandering the real strength of the trifecta that Republicans currently enjoy: "We have to start negotiating from a position of power. Trump will tell you, 'Negotiate from a position of power.'"