The No. 3 House Republican is casting doubt on whether Congress needs to pass a nationwide crime bill as the GOP seeks to project itself as the party of law and order.

“I think every local jurisdiction should be doing this,” Whip Tom Emmer said in an extended interview Thursday, when asked if there was appetite from his conference to pursue legislation to implement new federal policing and sentencing standards.

“You don’t need to wait for Congress,” the Minnesota lawmaker added.

His comments come the week the House considered on the chamber floor that would impose new crime policies on the District of Columbia, over which Congress has control.

The remarks also represent something of a reality check to President Donald Trump, who said around the time of his 30-day takeover of the D.C. police department that he wanted Congress to take up comprehensive crime legislation.

Earlier this month, Speaker Mike Johnson also said a nationwide crime bill is “one of the things on the table.”

Neither elaborated on what that bill might look like.

Emmer, however, noted Thursday that Republicans believe in a division between national and local governments, and specifically called on local officials in his own state — including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Tom Frey — to crack down on crime and other violent offenses.

“Look, President Trump, with his crime crackdown in the District, has proven that if leaders have the will to do this, they can accomplish amazing things,” Emmer said. “Donald Trump has taken the step and shown everyone across the country that this can be done.”

The House this week passed four bills that would impose new laws on D.C., including by lowering the age at which a minor may be tried as an adult for certain criminal offenses.

Emmer said it was his understanding that other D.C. crime bills recently approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee would come up for a vote on the floor when the House returns from the Rosh Hashanah recess — though deferred to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on the schedule.

“All of these things that are being done are to hold the criminals accountable,” Emmer said. “I expect there’s a huge appetite for that.”

Senators are expected to vote Friday on competing plans to temporarily fund the government past the end of the month as a partisan standoff ratchets up the chances for a shutdown, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private negotiations.

The plan, which still had to be finalized as of 6:45 p.m., comes after Republicans huddled behind closed doors for a second time Thursday to talk about the path forward as Congress barrels toward the Sept. 30 midnight deadline.

“The Democrats obviously want to vote on their [continuing resolution] … And we want to vote on the House CR,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, adding that Senate leaders are “talking to see if they can get there.“

It would be a shift from just hours ago when Majority Leader John Thune indicated that there wasn’t “much sentiment” inside the GOP for giving Democrats a vote on their alternative funding proposal.

But Democrats are also playing procedural hardball over the Senate’s ability to leave town for a scheduled one-week break. Thune, Schumer and all other 98 senators would have to sign off on a deal to hold votes on the competing CR plans tomorrow. The two people said both votes would be held at a 60-vote threshold, meaning both would fail.

Coming out of the Senate GOP meeting, Thune acknowledged that senators are “working on locking something in” but declined to comment further.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer first floated the idea of holding side-by-side votes Friday. It’s not clear what would happen afterward.

Senate Republicans have also discussed returning next Thursday to vote on the House CR — or even staying out of Washington until Sept. 29, less than 48 hours before a shutdown.

Senate Republicans confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees with one vote Thursday, days after changing the chamber’s rules along party lines to allow group consideration for most executive branch picks.

The first bloc included 48 Trump nominees for midlevel executive branch positions and ambassadorships. Had they been processed individually, their confirmations would have eaten up weeks of floor time.

“If the Senate had continued at the pace that we’ve been proceeding at through the month of July there would still be hundreds of empty desks in the executive branch on President Trump’s last day in office in 2029,” Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Thursday.

Those confirmed Thursday include Kimberly Guilfoyle to be ambassador to Greece, Callista Gingrich to be ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and Brandon Williams to be undersecurity for nuclear security at the Department of Energy.

Guilfoyle is the ex-wife of California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and a former romantic partner of Donald Trump Jr., while Gingrich is married to former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Williams is a former Republican House member from New York.

The party-line rules change — known as the “nuclear option” inside the Senate — came after Republican frustration boiled over about the slow pace of Trump administration confirmations due to Democratic opposition to their expedited consideration.

Senate leaders and the White House engaged in negotiations over the summer about speeding up confirmations for a tranche of nominees in exchange for the administration’s agreeing to unfreeze certain agency funds. Those talks unraveled, however, and Trump sent Republicans home for the weekslong August break.

Senate Democrats have defended their slow-walking of Trump’s picks, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling them “historically bad.” They view the rules change as the latest instance of Republicans bending to Trump — and also a move that could benefit them the next time Democrats control the White House and Senate.

The green light for group confirmations is the latest hammer senators have taken to the chamber’s handling of presidential nominees in recent years. In 2013, then-Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to lower the confirmation threshold for executive branch nominees and most judicial picks from 60 to 51. Republicans under Leader Mitch McConnell took the same step in 2017 for Supreme Court picks and then cut down on debate time for most other nominees two years later.

Senate Democrats, when they were in the majority under President Joe Biden, discussed changing the rules to allow for a limited number of nominees to be confirmed in groups. That plan never came to fruition, though, and the latest rules change enacted by Republicans doesn’t limit the number of nominees who can be confirmed at once. Cabinet picks and judges, however, are not eligible.

“One of the most important checks on executive power, given to the Senate in the Constitution, is the power of consent for nominees to high executive office. It prevents a president from installing in power unqualified or corrupt people,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a recent floor speech, adding that with the rules change Republicans “effectively gave that power up.”