Congress
House infighting will complicate brewing Senate spending deal
As White House officials and Senate Democrats scramble to nail down a last-minute deal to salvage a massive spending package, an internal GOP battle is brewing in the House over whether to accept any compromise.
At stake is whether a partial government shutdown set to kick off early Saturday morning would last just a few days or much longer. The House is in recess and currently not expected to reconvene until Monday.
GOP leaders expect President Donald Trump will have to lean heavily on House Republicans to get any Senate-approved agreement through the other chamber. Earlier this week, conservative hard-liners threatened to oppose the potential plan — suggesting a shutdown could drag on for weeks if leaders aren’t careful.
The Senate talks have revolved around splitting off Homeland Security funding from a larger six-bill package the House sent across the Capitol last week and passing a stopgap measure to keep DHS agencies open while additional strictures on immigration enforcement are negotiated.
A White House official granted anonymity to comment on the pending negotiations said Trump “wants the government to remain open” and confirmed the administration is “working with both parties to ensure the American people don’t have to endure another shutdown.”
Privately, some GOP hard-liners are open to the possibility of a DHS stopgap, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations, with one saying it was “not an automatic no.”
But their support would depend on the length of the stopgap and whether any Democratic policies are included as part of the agreement. That person added that a two-week punt negotiators are discussing would be “ridiculous.” Ultra-conservatives would prefer one lasting six weeks or longer.
Democrats want to move in the opposite direction, with Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota calling for a negotiation of “days, not weeks.”
In any scenario, GOP leaders will likely need Trump’s involvement to get the DHS stopgap and the remaining five bills passed in the House and signed into law, which would keep the vast majority of federal agencies — including the Pentagon — open through Sept. 30.
Speaker Mike Johnson already is dealing with a razor-thin margin, and a special election in Texas over the weekend is expected to complicate matters. If the Democratic nominee wins as expected, Johnson could spare only a single defection on a party-line vote.
Another complication is that a huge swath of House Democrats would likely oppose stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions. That could prevent GOP leaders from trying to pass the spending legislation on a bipartisan basis under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority vote.
On a caucus call Wednesday night, House Democrats aired concerns their Senate counterparts might accept a deal that does not put real guardrails on DHS agents, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Their leaders haven’t been included in the talks with the White House so far.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, asked Thursday about how soon a potential agreement could get final House approval, said his “hope and expectation” is that the other chamber will do “what’s necessary to keep the government funded.” He added that the House plan would be up to Johnson, whom he has spoken with, while acknowledging that having to abandon the six-bill package was “not ideal, for sure.”
“We’d hoped to process all the six bills and send it to the White House, but we are where we are, and so we got to try and sort it out and get the best possible outcome given the hand we’ve been dealt,” Thune added.
Sen. Ron Johnson is sending a letter Monday requesting a conference meeting to discuss the midterm results and a delay in the leadership election.
Johnson has gathered enough signatures to force the meeting under the Senate GOP’s rules and is proposing the gathering for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“Tuesday’s result was a stunning defeat,” Johnson and his backers write in the letter to Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice”
Republicans still expect their leadership election to be held Tuesday, where Majority Leader John Thune is so far unopposed to lead the party next year in the minority.
Sen. Chris Murphy announced Friday that he has been released from the hospital after suffering a stroke last week, but will miss “several weeks” of Senate votes while he continues to recover.
“The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement. “In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.”
He added that he remains in touch remotely with his staff and colleagues.
Murphy, who was hospitalized last weekend, said Friday that he was “diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.” Jose Suarez, the Chief of Neurosciences Critical Care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a separate statement released by Murphy’s office that the senator “experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez added.
Murphy is the latest senator to suffer a stroke in recent years. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) were both hospitalized for strokes in 2022. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), at that time a Senate candidate, also had a stroke in 2022 that he later described as near fatal.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said his group will still be power brokers in a massive Democratic majority in a strategy memo previewing plans for next term.
“While some in the press have speculated that a majority of this size undermines our influence within the caucus, they have it exactly backwards,” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in the Friday memo obtained by Blue Light News. “Big majorities are good for getting big things done. Our goal is not to win a battle against other Democratic caucuses. It is to pass longstanding progressive priorities that bring down costs, root out corruption, and boost wages.”
The CPC will have at least 105 members next term, according to the memo. If Democrats had a narrow majority, progressives — and any other faction in the caucus — could have used their votes as leverage. Now that presumptive speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have as many 30 votes to spare, Democrats broadly are recalibrating their approach next term.
Casar laid out a “three-pronged” strategy for the CPC to “wield our power” in the three-page memo — tackling legislation, oversight and “holding Donald Trump to his word on populist economic policies.”
“Small majorities give corporate special interest groups the ability to block popular populist policies by recruiting a small number of opponents; a big majority gives us the advantage,” he said.
Casar previewed how the CPC can engage with Trump, noting that “one of the few bright spots for bipartisan lawmaking” was a housing bill that banned private equity firms from buying homes. He noted the caucus should push Trump to cap credit card interest rates, lower credit card fees for small businesses and lower prescription drug costs.
“While we oppose [Trump] strongly on the vast majority of fronts, we should send bills to his desk that would lower prices and raise paychecks. If he signs them, good. If he vetoes those bills, that will propel us to a continued Democratic majority and a trifecta where a Democratic president can sign these proposals into law,” he said.
Casar also outlined oversight targets beyond the administration, urging Democrats to specifically investigate corporations that use customer data for “surveillance pricing,” health care companies that are “taking advantage of seniors” through the Medicare Advantage program and artificial intelligence labs who are “putting jobs and lives at risk.”
“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” he said.
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