Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, I’m Tina Nguyen.

Before we get started, a quick programming note and a thank-you. My new book, The MAGA Diaries, came out Tuesday, and I have been, as they say, on my grind this week: Somehow, amid the endless podcast appearances and late-night television and social media posts and a fabulous Puck party last night at The Riggs in D.C., I’ve also been gathering details on the current, unstable state of the Republican House.

Yes, Speaker Mike Johnson just passed a continuing resolution that averted a shutdown and bought more time to hammer out details on a future budget-border-Ukraine proposal that he can only hope won’t lose him his job in the process. So today, you get the rare congressional twofer: Abby Livingston has the goods on how the budget vote is playing out among rubbernecking Democrats, while I’ve got the view from the right—how Johnson and the Freedom Caucus are trying to keep their marriage together for the kids (i.e., federal government employees who enjoy receiving their paychecks).

First, Abby with the latest from the Capitol Hill cafeteria…

• Democratic schadenfreude: During the past few days, I’ve been stunned by how breezily Democrats of every stripe have entertained scenarios in which the Freedom Caucus moves on a motion to vacate. On Al Hunt and James Carville’s War Room podcast, this morning, Rep. Rosa DeLauro floated the idea that Democrats could step in to rescue Johnson—then added that perhaps there could be a path to install Hakeem Jeffries as speaker, instead.

  DeLauro is undeniably quirky, but she commands a great deal of respect among her House Democratic colleagues (especially on Appropriations). And she’s not the kind of attention hound who flies off the handle to hurl ad hominems at Republicans. In fact, this refrain has been everywhere in Democratic circles over the past 24 hours. Jeffries, for his part, avoided making headlines when asked about this scenario at a news conference.

  To be clear: The two House caucuses are not exactly plugged into each other’s internal drama and gossip, so it’s hard to view any Democratic tea-leaf reading as authoritative. (For the inside dope on the House G.O.P.—particularly when the H.F.C. is a factor—I will always defer to Tina, Puck’s oracle on conservative politics. See below…) At the same time, House Democrats have sharp political antennae, and they are reacting to what the rest of us are seeing: This is an untenable mess.

• Johnson agonistes: Here’s the question everyone’s asking on the Hill: Would Democrats save Johnson if hardliners initiate a vote of no confidence? I have three observations about the House Democratic mindset. One, Mike Johnson is not Kevin McCarthy. The Democratic animus toward the former speaker had accumulated over the years, and multiple Democratic members were infuriated by McCarthy’s Face the Nation appearance, two days before his ouster, where he tried to blame the 2023 almost-shutdown on them. Democrats aren’t exactly fans of Johnson’s beliefs, but I don’t detect schadenfreude toward him personally.

  At the same time, the Democrats’ patience with the unending House G.O.P. drama has worn paper-thin, and they’re unlikely to stabilize the situation without extracting some value for themselves. Moreover, the McCarthy defenestration solidified Democratic members’ bonds with Jeffries, who’d only taken power 10 months before. Only then did questions of “How involved is Nancy Pelosi in these decisions?” begin to fade.

  Last October, Jeffries might have had a mutiny on his hands if he didn’t push to oust McCarthy. These days, the Democratic options aren’t so obvious, and it sure seems like the rank-and-file would be much more inclined to lean on their new leader for guidance about how to approach this very extraordinary, hypothetical situation.

Yes, under suspension of rules, a continuing resolution was passed in a manner that allowed Republican hardliners to voice their dissent without being held responsible for another shutdown. And Speaker Mike Johnson still has his job, for now, having promised to use the extra time to work on the agenda items that the ideologues have demanded: a border control bill separate from the budget, an end to Ukraine funding, and a budget that decreases Democrat-appropriated spending—the most difficult one for Johnson to fulfill, given the Democrats’ control of the Senate and White House.

But endless patience is not a virtue as far as the Freedom Caucus is concerned, even if they know Johnson is technically on their side. “At least Kevin gave them some stuff every now and then. Nothing crazy,” a G.O.P. aide told me. “But it certainly does not seem like anyone’s walking away really thrilled right now. So I think it’d be weird to phrase that he’s been this great Freedom Caucus negotiator, because they haven’t gotten anything.”

As a man with a conservative background, who was himself a member of the H.F.C. before ascending to the speakership, at least Johnson can in good conscience say that he is actually fighting with the Senate and the White House on their behalf—a sense of empathy that the pragmatists McCarthy and Tom Emmer could never quite muster when it came to dealing with the Freedom Caucus’s demands. Right now, he’s making the rounds in conservative world hammering home this point—and at the very least, the Republican source noted, everyone seems polite now. “Politics is personal, it’s not all about policy,” he added.

But even as Johnson lives to see another day, the growing consensus among Republicans who voted against the C.R. is that the current strategy of delaying a final showdown over the budget is untenable. After all, any bill that’s in line with the deal McCarthy previously reached with Democrats, which led to his ouster as speaker, will continue to infuriate Republican voters—particularly those who are more than happy to back primary challengers. “I get that you didn't have as much time and you're undoing some mess-ups,” said a second G.O.P. aide, extending a modicum of grace to Johnson. “But we’re in an election year. Why should somebody vote for a Republican member of Congress right now?”