Congress
Democrats ready to reject latest GOP shutdown offer
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is dangling another carrot for Democrats. They still aren’t ready to bite.
In his latest pressure tactic, the South Dakota Republican is teeing up yet another vote to reopen the government Friday, the 38th day of the record-setting shutdown. But this time, he is pledging to swap out the House-passed stopgap bill for a new funding patch, likely into January, along with full-year funding for veterans programs, food aid and more.
“It’s what they asked for,” Thune said Thursday night.
But Democrats, stiffened by their party’s big election wins Tuesday that have papered over rising internal divisions, are expected to block a procedural vote yet again, according to two people granted anonymity to describe caucus dynamics, as well as interviews with several potential Democratic swing votes.
They are intent on forcing President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans to cough up a better deal and finally engage on their central demand — an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies that aren’t definitively addressed in the latest GOP offer.
“Leader Thune isn’t doing himself any favors by not coming to the table,” said Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who has been viewed as a possible swing vote but said she would vote no Friday.
Several other Democrats professed unity coming out of a long lunch meeting Thursday — one of several they’ve held this week as they’ve wrangled over an endgame to the long shutdown.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader, said Thursday that Democrats “are as unified as we have ever been,” while adding that “people understand the gravity of the shutdown.”
But those proclamations belied the behind-the-scenes tensions between a group of Democratic senators who believe the time has come to reopen the government and the caucus’ progressive bloc, which is aghast at the idea of surrendering without a health care deal, especially after Tuesday’s elections.
“They’ve got to stand up, and they’ve got to fight,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of his fellow caucus members in a brief interview Thursday night. “They have the American people at their back. And Republicans are going to have to come to the table and recognize they just cannot double premiums for millions of Americans in this country.”
Other corners of the caucus, however, believe Sanders and his allies — who have not participated in the bipartisan talks — are simply wanting to brawl with Republicans without having a realistic plan to bring the longest shutdown on record to an end.
The progressives “have yet to articulate any sense whatsoever of how they think this ends or any proposal to get Republicans to the table other than waiting longer and longer,” said a Senate Democratic aide who was granted anonymity to comment candidly about caucus dynamics. “And in the meantime it’s the families who can afford it the least that are increasingly getting walloped by the shutdown.”
“We are not going to get a better offer,” another Democratic aide involved in the bipartisan talks added.
That’s the case the Senate Democrats who have been negotiating have been trying to make privately to their colleagues, and they believed they were gaining traction earlier this week. But the sweeping election gains Tuesday fired up other Democrats and left many wondering if Republicans would offer new concessions.
Progress has been made in recent days toward finalizing a three-bill package that would fund some federal agencies through September, one that would be attached to a stopgap bill to reopen the rest of the government for just a few months. Republicans are also discussing whether a final deal can involve rehiring thousands of federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown — a new element first reported by POLITICO Thursday.
But according to a person granted anonymity to describe the sensitive talks, there has been no new GOP offer on health care. Republicans are willing to commit to a future vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies by an agreed-upon date but they have not moved off their position that the government must reopen first. Nor has there been any progress in getting Trump or Speaker Mike Johnson to guarantee a path forward for any Senate-forged compromise.
“I’ve made this very clear to them that I can’t guarantee them an outcome — I can guarantee them a process,” Thune said Thursday. “We’ve had that conversation multiple times already.”
As senators left the Capitol around dinnertime Thursday, they still didn’t know what exactly Thune would be asking them to vote on Friday. To allow more time for talks to progress, the Senate won’t come into session until noon Friday, and a time hasn’t yet been scheduled for the promised vote.
If it fails as currently expected, it’s unclear what Thune might do next. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 GOP leader, said Thursday the Senate would stay in session over the weekend, but senators could head home — potentially for a scheduled weeklong Veterans Day recess — if there’s no hope of a breakthrough.
The uncertainty had weary senators questioning whether the end is truly in sight.
“We’ve been talking for days, but there’s no product,” said Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who is among the Democrats considered most likely to support a bipartisan compromise. “I’m hopeful we can find a way through this over the weekend.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who has been closely engaged in the bipartisan talks, said Thursday night there is “no organized effort at this point that is bearing fruit.”
“There are attempts to find a way to bring people forward, but I’m discouraged,” he added. “I’m hoping that overnight things might change a little bit, but I’m not optimistic.”
Jennifer Scholtes, Mia McCarthy, Katherine Tully-McManus, Meredith Lee Hill and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
Congress
House Democrats once again left complaining about a Senate spending deal
For the third time in less than a year, a spending deal brokered in the Senate has House Democrats feeling left out — and grumbling about their counterparts across the Capitol.
This time, the agreement between President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leaders would spare the vast majority of federal agencies from an extended shutdown — funding most of them through the end of the fiscal year in September while punting Homeland Security funding only through Feb. 13.
But to Democrats up in arms over Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, that’s still 10 days of DHS funding too many — assuming the deal passes the House as planned Tuesday — leaving them to vent once again about the other chamber.
“There are some Senate Democrats who always signal nervousness and are so reluctant to be strong,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). “We end up having to answer for what they won’t do, and it can be very frustrating.”
“We are far closer to the people,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), adding that it’s “critically important that House members be brought in” during negotiations over immigration enforcement constraints considering ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies are deployed in their districts.
The interchamber tensions between Democrats are becoming a regular feature of funding fights in the second Trump term. Lawmakers, strategists and voters alike exploded in anger last March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a handful of colleagues allowed a spending package to move forward amid the Elon Musk-led DOGE assault on federal agencies. In November, tempers again flared when a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to end a record 43-day shutdown.
This time, the situation is more nuanced. At stake is $1.2 trillion in full-year funding that was negotiated on a bipartisan basis; Democrats generally support the vast majority of the agreement. But the inclusion of the DHS money has been a sore spot — especially after the killing last month of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.
A version of the DHS bill passed in the House before the Jan. 24 killing of Alex Pretti garnered only seven Democratic votes. Senate Democrats immediately declared a no-go on full-year funding for the department after the incident, and Schumer and Trump negotiated a two-week punt to allow for further talks.
Fewer than half of Senate Democratic Caucus members ultimately ended up voting for the deal, however, and support among House Democrats is considerably more scant.
Asked if House Democrats were sufficiently read in on the Trump-Schumer deal, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said “no” but added, “I don’t think that that’s surprising.”
“But I think the split among senators was kind of surprising,” the California lawmaker added. “And so … we’ll see what happens.”
The spending package is headed to the floor Tuesday, where it remains an open question if House Republicans will be able to unite on a key test vote. Late last week — facing dissension in his own ranks over having to pass a bill with only temporary DHS funding — Speaker Mike Johnson entertained using a bipartisan fast-track process.
But members of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership circle were caught unaware — with some downright livid — at Johnson’s confidence that he could pass the bill under that process — which would require a two-thirds-majority vote, meaning at least 70 Democrats would be needed to get it across the line.
Such a move generally requires tacit agreement from minority party leaders to supply the votes. But Republicans at that point hadn’t asked their Democratic counterparts for a more formal private count of how many Democrats might support the measure, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Jeffries told Johnson just hours later on a private call that Democratic leadership would not commit to delivering the required votes for a fast-track vote, forcing Johnson to gather GOP votes to jump through a procedural hurdle first. Johnson has since accused Democrats of “playing games” with the shutdown-ending package.
Those interparty antics have helped deflect attention from internal Democratic tensions over the Senate-brokered funding deal, with Jeffries playing down any such rift Monday.
“I speak regularly with Leader Schumer, and I speak regularly with Mike Johnson,” he said when asked if House Democrats were properly consulted in the funding package negotiations. “There’s no daylight between House and Senate Democrats on accomplishing the objective, which is dramatic reform of ICE.”
Jeffries opposed the prior package, with full-year DHS funding, but would not say Monday how he intended to vote on the revised bill with the short-term stopgap.
Schumer, for his part, said he spoke with Jeffries during the negotiations that erupted in the Senate following Pretti’s killing. He said after the Senate vote Friday night that Jeffries had agreed on limiting DHS funding to Feb. 13.
“This bill was negotiated by … [Senate Majority LeaderJohn] Thune and me,” Schumer said. “But I’ve talked to Hakeem Jeffries. For instance, we talked about how long a [stopgap] should be, because we wanted to limit it greatly.”
Asked about Schumer’s comment Monday, Jeffries said, “I think what we made clear to the Senate is that the original three-month proposal was completely and totally unacceptable.”
Behind the scenes, Schumer told the White House and congressional Republicans last week that they would need to talk to Jeffries because the bill was going back to the House, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose a private conversation.
If Republicans can get the bill over the procedural hurdle Tuesday, more Democrats are expected to support it than the seven who backed the previous version. But the party remained sharply divided Monday.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Appropriations Committee Democrat, said Monday she would support the bill on the floor, while another panel leader, Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern of the Rules Committee, said he would oppose it.
“I will not vote for business as usual while masked agents break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” McGovern said.
Others declined to forecast their plans, including members of the Democratic leadership team. Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the caucus vice chair, said he planned to attend Tuesday morning’s caucus meeting before deciding.
Several Democrats said they do not expect party leaders to formally whip votes for or against the funding package, with some acknowledging that it would not be an easy decision for members who support the vast majority of the funding bill and also don’t want to see noncontroversial DHS agencies such as FEMA and TSA shut down.
And blaming the Senate for having to take a tough note, one Democrat noted, is hardly new.
“I’ve been here long enough that people always complain about the other chamber, so that’s always an easy out,” Aguilar said.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Congress
House Republicans eye next week for housing bill vote
House leadership is eyeing the week of Feb. 9 for a vote on a bipartisan housing package, according to four people with direct knowledge of the planning.
Senior lawmakers have also been mulling whether to consider the widely supported bill under suspension of House rules, which would expedite passage of the legislation, said three of the people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
However, plans for the bill are not locked in and could be subject to change as the House deals with a partial government shutdown.
The Housing in the 21st Century Act, which overwhelmingly advanced through the House Financial Services Committee in December, is part of a push by Congress to pass legislation that could address a growing housing affordability crisis. The bill includes 25 provisions that aim to increase the housing supply, modernize local development and rural housing programs, expand manufactured and affordable housing, protect borrowers and those utilizing federal housing programs, and enhance oversight of housing providers.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said Friday that he’s pushing for the Housing for the 21st Century Act to receive a floor vote expeditiously.
”I hope that that bill can come to the House floor in just a few days. I really am pushing for that, I think it’s the right decision,” Hill said on Bloomberg Radio.
The Senate’s housing bill, the ROAD to Housing Act, passed the upper chamber as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act but may be put to a separate floor vote. If the House is able to pass its own version by a wide margin before the Senate, it could have additional leverage for negotiations with the upper chamber for a final bill. Hill and other House Republicans have said the Senate bill, which received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee, has a number of provisions that would not be acceptable among House GOP members.
Congress
Bill and Hillary Clinton now agree to testify before Congress
Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an Oversight aide said Monday evening.
It’s a remarkable reversal for the former president and secretary of state, who were adamant they would defy committee-issued subpoenas and risk imprisonment by the Trump Justice Department as the House prepared to vote Wednesday to hold them both in contempt of Congress.
After both skipped their scheduled depositions earlier this year, the Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis in January to approve contempt measures for each of them.
Although both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, they have maintained that the subpoenas were not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose, rendering them invalid. They also complained the GOP-led exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in jail.
It is not immediately clear when they will appear and if the House will continue to pursue the contempt votes.
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