Congress
Republicans broach a longer stopgap bill as shutdown enters fourth week
When House Republicans first passed a stopgap spending bill last month, it was written to give Congress a seven-week window to come to a long-term deal on government funding.
With the government shutdown now running into a fourth week, that original Nov. 21 deadline is looming fast — and numerous Republicans acknowledged Monday a new, longer stopgap bill will be needed.
What they don’t yet agree on is how much more time to give themselves to score a more enduring deal given that negotiations with Democrats to end the shutdown are virtually nonexistent.
GOP leaders are discussing dates ranging from mid-December to deep into 2026, and — in hopes of bringing Democrats aboard a shutdown-ending stopgap — they have offered to hold a separate vote on extending key health insurance subsidies alongside it.
But reopening the timing debate is risky and divisive inside the GOP. Leaders face a similar dilemma as they did before the shutdown began: Appropriators generally want a shorter stopgap, allowing them to write bipartisan bills, while conservative hard-liners want a longer continuing resolution running until March or even to the beginning of the next fiscal year, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune raised the possibility Monday that lawmakers would need “something much longer term” into 2026 if the current stalemate continues.
“I’m for doing the appropriations process, but, you know, at some point [Democrats] may not leave any alternatives,” Thune said when asked if he would support a CR until next Oct. 1.
Going that far into next year would spark pushback from members of the Appropriations Committee, who want to lock in a fiscal 2026 funding deal as soon as possible. The deeper Congress goes into the fiscal year, they worry, the less appetite there will be for reaching an agreement that doesn’t just extend funding levels set more than 18 months ago.
“We’re probably going to have to extend the CR date because the Democrats have held us up for weeks now,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Monday. “Having said that I don’t want to go into next year and I am adamantly opposed to having a long-term CR.”
The backdrop of the timing debate is a bipartisan negotiation process that has almost completely broken down, if it ever really started in the first place. Thune and other senators acknowledged one-off conversations here and there in interviews Monday, but the group of rank-and-file senators who gathered early in the shutdown to try and forge a deal have made no significant progress.
“They’re not really happening,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said on Monday of the bipartisan talks, adding that the two sides were at an “impasse.”
Getting Democrats to agree to a longer CR is far from a sure thing. They’re almost certain to balk at the idea of going into next year without an agreement on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
While Senate Republicans are willing to give Democrats a vote on extending those subsidies immediately after they vote to reopen the government, Democrats have been holding out for firmer guarantees that an extension can pass the House and get signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Private Senate GOP discussions about changing the expiration date for a stopgap spilled into public view when Mullin suggested more than a week ago that Republicans needed to start thinking about a longer window, potentially to Dec. 18 or 19. House GOP hard-liners argued strongly against that December timeline in conversations with senior Republicans, according to two other people granted anonymity to describe private talks.
But with the clock ticking, Mullin opened the door Monday to a 2026 expiration date given the current shutdown stalemate.
The idea of going deeper into the year — or potentially next year — has gained traction with a growing number of Republicans who acknowledge that they will need more than just a month to negotiate a sweeping deal that would set new funding levels, and new policy priorities, for the rest of the fiscal year.
“The 11/21 extension is no longer tenable & should be extended much further out,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), a close Trump ally, tweeted Monday.
The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.
The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.
That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.
However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.
Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.
The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.
“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”
The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.
The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.
The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.
Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.
That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.
Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”
Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.
House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.
She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.
But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.
Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.
“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.
He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.
While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.
According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.
The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.
Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.
At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”
“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”
An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.
A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.
The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.
Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.
They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.
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