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Capitol agenda: Republicans to reveal funding bill, testing Democrats in shutdown showdown

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Republicans are getting ready to reveal a short-term bill to fund the government through Nov. 20, despite Democrats’ demands for buy-in in any legislation to avert a shutdown.

Text of the continuing resolution is expected to be released as early as Monday morning, according to three Republicans. Here’s the latest:

The timeline: House Republicans want to put the CR on the floor this week. That still likely won’t give the Senate enough time to schedule a vote before next week’s recess in observance of Rosh Hashanah, however, leaving Congress with just days left to act before the Sept. 30 deadline.

The holdup: House Republican leaders are working to attach increased lawmaker security funding to the stopgap bill in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox on Sunday morning that all options are on the table, and three people tell Meredith it’s the final piece to resolve. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also been doing some last-minute lobbying for his bipartisan Russia sanctions bill to hitch a ride on the CR. But two people granted anonymity to discuss the views of GOP leadership say it’s not going in without President Donald Trump’s explicit and public backing.

The big problem: Democrats in both chambers insist they will not accept any funding agreement without bipartisan talks, and Republicans are going it alone. They also say they need the CR to include an extension of enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act insurance premiums, which are due to expire at the end of the year. Republicans are still figuring out how to proceed on that one.

A key question is how Democrats will vote in the Senate, where Republicans won’t be able to move government funding legislation without support across the aisle. Many Republicans are banking on a do-over of what happened in March, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer shored up support for a procedural vote on a shutdown-averting package negotiated only among the GOP.

But Schumer got an earful from his party’s base about not fighting harder for a better deal, and he’s currently warning his GOP colleagues that a CR without the ACA credit extension is a deal-breaker.

“If Republicans follow Donald Trump’s orders to not even bother dealing with Democrats they will be single handedly putting our country on the path toward a shutdown,” said a Schumer spokesperson Sunday night.

Some Senate Democrats have suggested they could support a “clean” stopgap funding bill now if it’s intended to buy more time toward negotiating an ACA subsidies extension later. But many of them are holding back on opining without first knowing what Republicans are officially offering.

“I’m not going to comment until I see what actually happens. It’s all speculation right now,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) told Blue Light News.

What else we’re watching:   

— Senate rules change: This week Majority Leader John Thune will steer Senate Republicans toward finalizing their rules change to allow most executive branch nominees to be confirmed in batches. It will put Republicans on track to confirm their first tranche of 48 nominees including Kimberly Guilfoyle and Callista Gingrich to be ambassadors to Greece and Switzerland, respectively.

— DC bills get House vote: It’s shaping up to be a major week for the District of Columbia on Capitol Hill. A slate of bills will come to the House floor that would override laws put in place by the D.C. government, and the capital city’s top three leaders will appear before a key committee. This comes after Trump’s month-long federal takeover of D.C.’s police department and as the National Guard continues to patrol the city’s streets. Republicans remain intent on casting Washington as an example of a Democratic-led jurisdiction overrun by violent crime.

— Miran confirmation: The Senate is poised to confirm Stephen Miran Monday evening to the Federal Reserve, just around a month after the Trump ally was first nominated. The chamber has moved at blinding speed to install Miran so he can be in seat when the Fed kicks off its September meeting Tuesday, at which time the central bank is widely expected to cut interest rates.

Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report. 

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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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