Congress is back in session this week, but it's unclear whether the dysfunction that's so far been a defining feature of this House will allow for any work to get done.

And there's plenty of it, including passing aid for Ukraine.

The chaos has largely been blamed on a small coalition of hard right members within the Republican caucus, which holds a razor thin majority.

As our Washington correspondent Ben Hulac reports, that's made it increasingly difficult and unpredictable to govern.

Ben joins me now with the latest.

Ben, good to see you.

Good to see you there in the Congress.

So here's what I'm wondering.

Folks are finally back, but we've seen how difficult it is, Ben, for them to get any work done, especially in a bipartisan manner.

They were able to cobble through some messy votes on a budget earlier last month.

What's on tap now and are they going to be able to get things done?

Right.

So Congress is coming back.

They were away for a two week recess over the Easter period.

What is next is really anyone's guess to an extent.

Marjorie Taylor GREENE, a Republican from Georgia, has threatened to file a procedural motion that would essentially overturn the House in its current leadership structure right now.

She has threatened that if one more dollar goes to Ukraine, aid spending, that she's going to file a motion to remove Mike Johnson from the speakership.

And if we think back to the fall, this is exactly the sort of procedure that got Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican speaker, booted out of office.

So that's really what is on everyone's mind here in the Capitol.

I just spoke with a House Democratic staffer who was saying, and I've heard this from lawmakers and staffers on the Democratic side of the aisle, they would potentially be able and willing to protect Mike Johnson from losing his job as speaker in exchange for some sort of deal on Ukraine foreign aid spending.

Other than that, there's a slew of other options, but that's immediately what's front and center.

How did we get here?

Because we have been seeing what seems like these same repeated events month after month, and we land in the same place.

Right.

That's that is something that will probably be better told by historians and political scientists.

But in this Congress, in this moment, a small fraction of hard right Republicans in the House wield a tremendous amount of power.

And in a very narrowly divided House chamber, 218 Republicans are in the House, 213 Democrats.

Basically, a handful of members can be came for a day.

They can demand certain provisions in a spending bill.

They can they can block things.

They can use all sorts of leverage, all sorts of tools at their disposal to essentially grind down government to a halt.

So this is really the outgrowth of years and years of a Republican Party that has splintered.

You could probably trace it back to the Tea Party era.

Remember back to when former President Obama was elected.

This is sort of that outgrowth.

Generations later come in, come in, do.

But it's it's been sort of simmering for years now, this this entire Republican Party conflict.

So, okay, you mentioned Ukraine aid.

I'm wondering where that stands and if, as you reported, there were, it seems about 300 votes, according to Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, to get some sort of aid package together, why can't.

Although it's a thin majority, why can't this Republican majority in the House coalesce other members on what they want to see in the aid package?

Right.

It's it's it again, dates back and it stretches back to this this block of Republicans on the hard right who do not want to spend dollars on overseas projects and nations they don't want money going to Ukraine or Gaza or Israel or perhaps Taiwan.

The aid package now that really the best and Congresswoman Sherrill has said this to me and other reporters, there are about 300 votes in the House.

That's a ballpark figure that Congress could probably get together to pass the Ukraine aid package.

But it faces certain procedural hurdles.

And I wrote about this in my piece today.

There's something called the Rules Committee, and I won't get into the nitty gritty details, but the Rules Committee basically is this sort of gate between bills and then the House floor and on the Rules Committee are.

I hate to be a broken record.

Are these members who are very opposed to foreign aid and because they're opposed.

The speaker has to go around them through a procedural maneuver.

And that gets us to where we are now, where, yes, you can have a majority, even a big majority, 300 would pass almost any bill.

But there are when you go around this rules committee and I'm sorry to the viewers for this wonky explanation.

You have to reach a higher supermajority threshold.

So we're in this odd, funky space where, yes, you can have a majority for lots of issues, but those issues may not become law.

And even a new speaker would have to deal with that infighting.

Ben Hulac, our Washington correspondent for us.

Ben, thanks so much.

My pleasure.