Top Republicans in Congress will take a massive gamble on shutdown politics in the coming days: GOP leaders will not step in to prevent missed paychecks to the military.

It’s the most dramatic step yet by Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson to attempt to force Democrats to end the government shutdown, even as they realize their party will, too, face political pain for the move. And it comes at a high-stakes moment for both parties: This will be the first time in recent history that active-duty military service members will miss a paycheck on a large scale during a shutdown.

But behind the scenes, Thune and Johnson have agreed that Republicans can make no attempts to lessen the pain they argue Democrats are causing millions of Americans by rejecting the GOP’s plan to simply extend current funding – concerned that if Congress took that step, Democrats would face less pressure to reopen the government, according to multiple GOP leadership sources.

As the shutdown drags into its third week, tensions are rising in the GOP with no clear way out. Lawmakers are angry at each other for getting into now-viral hallway confrontations with Democrats or doing high-profile interviews where they blame their own party for the lapse. Some are angry at GOP leadership for failing to address the military pay issue from the start, or for the optics of keeping the House out of session for weeks on end.