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Capitol agenda: New hope and pain as shutdown nears record

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Fresh hints of progress toward ending the shutdown are surfacing in the Senate, as pressure points pile up and the federal funding lapse is set to become the longest ever come Tuesday night.

Here’s what we’re watching as the Senate returns for Week 6 of the shutdown:

A RAY OF HOPE — Bipartisan talks among rank-and-file senators appear to be headed in the right direction, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the talks. The White House has warned it will not meet with Democrats until they open the government but Trump officials are in touch with the Republican senators involved in the talks, according to two of the people.

Several senators are having across-the-aisle conversations, including Sens. Angus King, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, Susan Collins, Katie Britt and Lisa Murkowski.

PAIN POINTS — Millions of low-income Americans are losing access to food aid after SNAP funding lapsed this weekend. A federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to restore funding this week.

Fallout from the looming expiration of Obamacare subsidies is also beginning to land across the country. Open enrollment on most Affordable Care Act state marketplaces and the federal exchange began Saturday, greeting consumers with sticker shock. Some enrollees in New Jersey will see out-of-pocket premiums rise more than 175 percent, while some in Colorado will see a 101 percent increase.

TRUMP NEEDLES — Trump is continuing to prod Republicans into getting rid of the filibuster, even after GOP leaders gently pushed back.

Trump pressured Republicans in Truth Social posts Saturday and Sunday night, warning that they, “will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!!” On Sunday he said they should “TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, NOT JUST FOR THE SHUTDOWN, BUT FOR EVERYTHING ELSE.”

In a “60 Minutes” interview recorded Friday and airing Sunday, he addressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s resistance to the idea: “I like John Thune, I think he’s terrific but I disagree with him on that point.”

ELECTION DAY — Both parties are watching the outcomes in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections on Tuesday night, as well as the New York City mayor’s race and California’s redistricting referendum. Some Republicans including Thune see a potential inflection point for Democrats after Tuesday.

“They’re going to wait till after the election on Tuesday,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin. “And then they’re looking for an exit ramp.”

What else we’re watching:   

— War powers resolution: Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) could force a vote as soon as this week on a war powers resolution, amid concerns that the Trump administration may ramp up its strikes around Venezuela and possibly within the country.

— Gamblers tax relief: A bipartisan group of senators is looking to give gamblers some tax relief, after Republicans curtailed a key deduction in the megabill Trump signed this summer. Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, said that the “Finance Committee has been working on it” as well as members off the panel.

Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus, Nicholas Wu, Benjamin Guggenheim and Calen Razor contributed reporting.

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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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‘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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