WASHINGTON — Nobody home. Gone fishing. The lights are out in the federal government. The House of Representatives chamber is deserted and silent as a tomb. It’s almost as if its Republican leaders don’t care if the country is in crisis.

While the president carries out a bloody plot to snuff out the federal government like a brief candle, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, put the House on recess.

This way, Johnson and the Republican half of the divided House can dodge responsibility for what’s coming: a brewing calamity brought and wrought by President Donald J. Trump.

Democrats know time is on their side, for once, in the second Trump presidency. Minority leaders Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House hold cards — aces, actually — on looming health care costs.

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