Speaker Nancy Pelosi has done a masterful job of holding together her fractious caucus since the Democrats regained the majority in November. But on Thursday the political forces pushing the wings of her party apart became overwhelming. The problem arose over an emergency $4.6 billion spending bill to address the mushrooming humanitarian crisis at America’s southern border. With a vote of 305 to 102 in favor, the Senate-approved version easily cleared the magic 217-vote threshold to pass the lower chamber. But despite the Democratic majority in the House, the bill was carried by Republican votes, along with those of the moderate Democrats who were credited with winning back the majority by flipping seats in Trump Country. When the bill passed early Thursday, rage erupted immediately. “She has the power,” said one disgruntled Democratic staffer, “and she made the wrong decision.”

Among progressives, the bill is viewed as both sorely insufficient and a capitulation to Trump, directing more money to the border with little congressional oversight and no curb on current Trump policies like family separation. “There’s no accountability for the for-profit industry that is intimately involved in the detention of these children,” said Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who voted against the measure. “They don’t have any accountability. So we’re giving them a blank check and saying to them, ‘Good luck.’” Moderates, for their part, argued they were just being realistic.

After days of whipping votes and discussions with the Trump administration, Pelosi’s troubles came to a head Thursday morning. During a 9 a.m. leadership meeting, Pelosi signaled that a vote on the Senate-passed legislation might be unavoidable. Initially the plan was to vote on a version that included significant Democratic amendments—provisions to limit the amount of time children can spend in holding facilities to 90 days, less funding for ICE, and to allow lawmakers to make visits to facilities detaining children without notice. But moderate lawmakers, from the Blue Dog Coalition and Problem Solvers Caucus, threatened to tank the vote. They criticized the cuts to ICE, arguing that it would handicap efforts to combat human trafficking, and, as a group of 18, the moderates had the numbers to kill the amended version of the bill, which lacked Republican support, and ramped up pressure on Pelosi to vote on the Senate version.

Meanwhile, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence signaled to Pelosi that the amendments would be nonstarters. The “Senate bill is the only game in town,” McConnell declared.

By the afternoon Pelosi had made her calculation. “The children come first. At the end of the day, we have to make sure that the resources needed to protect the children are available. Therefore, we will not engage in the same disrespectful behavior that the Senate did in ignoring our priorities. In order to get resources to the children fastest, we will reluctantly pass the Senate bill,” the speaker wrote in a letter addressed “Dear Democratic Colleague” around 3 p.m. “As we pass the Senate bill, we will do so with a Battle Cry as to how we go forward to protect children in a way that truly honors their dignity and worth.”

The outcry from progressives was swift. “Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” Mark Pocan, the co-chair of the progressive caucus, wrote on Twitter. A visibly upset Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, walking on the way to votes, could be heard saying, “I’m pissed.”

“This is a co-equal branch of government. We were supposed to do our job and say, ‘Mr. President, great. We’re going to give you this money, but guess what? You’re going to actually have to take them out of the cages,’” Tlaib told me, her voice cracking with emotion. “Instead we just gave them more money to continue the status quo.”