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SNAP benefits set for first-ever lapse with Senate set to reject funding patches

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Senate Republicans will block a Democratic bill that would keep federal food aid flowing to 42 million Americans as they try to build pressure to reopen the government, Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday.

The bill from New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, which would fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Women, Infants and Children nutrition past Nov. 1, is a “cynical attempt to buy political cover for Democrats to allow them to carry on their government shutdown even longer,” Thune said from the Senate floor.

“We’re not going to let them pick winners and losers,” he added on the 29th day of the government shutdown.

It only takes one senator to object to passing a bill by unanimous consent, as Democrats plan to do in the coming hours. And short of President Donald Trump unilaterally shifting funds — which administration officials say he won’t do — SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, will lapse for the first time in modern history at the end of the week.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has offered his own stand-alone SNAP patch, has also said that his proposal will also be blocked from passing unanimously on the floor.

Asked about rejecting the SNAP bills, Thune separately told reporters that if the Senate starts “going down the road of … take care of this group or that group … it just begs the larger question, how long is this going to drag on?”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, pointed the blame for the lapse squarely at Republicans, adding that he would vote for Hawley’s proposal if it was put up for a vote.

“Ask John Thune why he won’t put it on the floor,” he said inside the Senate chamber Wednesday. “He knows there’s broad Republican support for it, and he doesn’t put it on the floor. He’s afraid of Trump. That’s it. He knows better.”

Trump has spoken carefully about the potential SNAP lapse in recent days, however. Asked about the approaching cliff on Air Force One overnight, Trump said, “We’ll get it done” before quickly saying Democrats need to reopen the government. He also suggested Friday that “everybody is going to be in good shape” when asked about the looming deadline.

The food-aid cliff has split Republicans between those who want to make sure the program is funded any way possible and GOP leaders and others who don’t want to ease pressure on Democrats to fully reopen the government.

Thune said he spoke to Trump Tuesday night but that they did not discuss the idea of the administration taking unilateral action on SNAP. Instead, the South Dakota Republican said, what Trump is “saying consistently is, ‘Open up the government.’”

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is among the Republicans who have urged USDA to shift funding to cover the benefits. With roughly 12 percent of all Mainers relying on the program, a lapse could be a major liability in her race for reelection next year in a blue state.

Democrats and even privately some Republican lawmakers argue the Trump administration has the legal authority to tap a $5 billion contingency fund, or other USDA funds, to ensure SNAP benefits keep flowing during the shutdown. Dozens of Democratic governors and attorneys general have sued the administration over its decision not to tap those funds.

“They need to use it. That’s what it’s there for. If they don’t, they’re inflicting pain upon some of those vulnerable people in the country, and shame on them,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee. “I mean, Trump’s not only a lousy president, but he’s a rotten human being.”

Speaker Mike Johnson argued Wednesday that Congress hasn’t authorized the contingency fund and faulted Democrats for voting against a stopgap spending bill that would keep benefits flowing. But even some Republican lawmakers privately note that’s not how the fund works.

“On Saturday, this gets very real,” Johnson said Wednesday. “You’re talking about tens of millions of Americans at risk of going hungry — if Senate Democrats continue this.”

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Congress

DHS stopgap set for quick House action after Rules Committee vote

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The House Rules Committee advanced a measure Friday evening that would fund the entirety of the Homeland Security Department through May 22 — without setting up debate or a separate vote on the funding bill itself.

The panel, after a raucous meeting that devolved into shouting at multiple points, voted 8-4 on party lines to advance the measure to the floor.

The rule includes a “deem and pass” provision, a tactic that allows legislation to be passed by the House automatically once the rule itself is adopted. While there will be one hour of floor debate and a vote on the rule, there will not be a standalone House vote on the DHS spending bill.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) described himself as needing “a neck brace” from the whiplash of hearing Republicans argue for hours that the Senate’s early-morning voice vote on a different DHS funding measure was “shameful” for lack of transparency and accountability.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) accused the Senate of moving their bill “in the middle of the night, with the smell of jet fumes in the air,” lamenting that the House was left “to take it or leave it.”

House leaders, McGovern suggested, have chosen a similar path by fast-tracking the eight-week DHS stopgap.

“You’re in charge,” he told Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “You can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

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Rand Paul weighs a 2028 presidential bid

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is considering a bid for president in 2028, as Republicans jockey for the future of the GOP post-Trump.

In a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview airing Sunday, a reporter asked Paul about an article that implied he would be running for president.

“We’re thinking about it,” Paul said. “I would say fifty-fifty,” adding that he would make a final decision after the midterm elections.

Paul ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 with a libertarianism-focused campaign but ultimately dropped out after a poor performance in the Iowa caucuses and a shortage of cash. He instead ran for reelection to the Senate.

Paul has had a complex relationship with his own party and with President Donald Trump, often finding himself the lone Republican on certain issues. More recently, he was the only Republican to support a joint resolution that would limit Trump’s war powers in Iran.

His father, former Rep. Ron Paul, also ran for president three times: first as a Libertarian in 1988, and twice as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.

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Congress

‘Meltdown’: DHS shutdown set to drag on after House GOP rejects Senate deal

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House Republicans moved Friday to further extend the six-week shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by rejecting a Senate bill that would fund the vast majority of DHS agencies through September.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a temporary extension of DHS funding through May 22 — a plan that has uncertain prospects in the House and certainly won’t pass the Senate before the shutdown becomes the longest funding lapse in U.S. history Saturday.

But Johnson said House Republicans simply could not swallow the Senate bill, which omits funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol and some other parts of Customs and Border Protection.

“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” he said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government. The Democrats fundamentally disagree.”

The move toward an eight-week stopgap creates a tactical gulf between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who called an end to weeks of abortive bipartisan talks Thursday and pushed through the funding bill in hopes of tacking on funding later for ICE and CBP in a party-line budget reconciliation bill.

President Donald Trump has largely stayed out of the GOP infighting on Capitol Hill, keeping his criticism trained on Democrats. He ordered DHS to pay TSA officers Thursday as long security lines snarls more U.S. airports.

Johnson played down the split with his Senate counterpart, saying the Democratic leader there bore more blame for the impasse.

“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” he said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House. … Our colleagues on this side understand this is not a game. We are not playing their games.”

Thune said early Friday morning he did not speak directly to Johnson in the final hours leading up to the Senate’s voice vote, but he said they had texted. He acknowledged he did not know in advance how the House would handle the Senate bill.

“Hopefully they’ll be around, and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there,” he said.

Johnson made his game plan clear with House Republicans on a private call just minutes before addressing reporters in the Capitol, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. He warned that a failure to advance the short-term DHS stopgap would upend GOP plans for a reconciliation bill, the people said.

He suggested the Senate could quickly clear the stopgap measure once it passes the House. Most senators have left Washington for a recess running through April 13, but Johnson said the chamber could approve the House measure by unanimous consent at a planned pro forma session Monday.

But some House Republicans on the private call, including Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, aired doubts it could pass the Senate — or even the House. Some fellow GOP centrists argued that the House should just swallow the Senate bill and end the standoff.

The House plan for a 60-day stopgap won a cold reception in the Senate, with even Republicans warning it will only prolong the partial government shutdown.

The plan is instead fueling frustration among both Republicans and Democrats who view House Republicans as essentially throwing temper tantrum. Three people granted anonymity to speak candidly each described the House as having a “meltdown.”

Schumer publicly slammed the House GOP plan Friday, saying it was “dead on arrival” across the Capitol, “and Republicans know it.”

A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly added that the quickest way to end the shutdown is for the House to pass the Senate bill.

Five people granted anonymity to comment on Senate dynamics said there was no possibility that Democrats would let the House GOP plan pass during the Senate’s brief pro forma sessions over the next two weeks. It would only take one Democratic senator to show up and object to any attempt to pass it.

The bill, according to the five people, also can’t get 60 votes in the Senate once the chamber returns. Democrats have previously rejected even shorter stopgaps, leaving some to privately question why House Republicans would ever think their plan would work.

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