Several Republicans joined all House Democrats in voting to sink a GOP-led measure to formally condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar and remove her from her committees.

The 214-213 vote ended an effort by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to censure Omar and strip her of all her committee assignments over her criticism of the late conservative political activist Charlie Kirk. Omar has strenuously denied directly making the comments cited by Mace, and House Democrats rallied behind her.

“This is political theater. This is BS meant to bolster [Mace’s] gubernatorial bid,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told reporters earlier Wednesday. “And frankly, she’s trying to monetize this.”

Four Republicans — Reps. Mike Flood of Nebraska, Jeff Hurd of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California and Cory Mills of Florida — supported the motion to kill Mace’s measure.

Mace brought up her measure through a fast-track process bypassing committees. Democrats immediately responded, with Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) calling up a retaliatory censure of Mills, who is subject to an ethics investigation and a restraining order proceeding. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) also signaled he would file articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel in response.

Omar, a Minnesota progressive, has long been a magnet for GOP criticism. The House GOP voted last Congress to boot Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A small group of Republicans privately debated the potential fallout from a censure before Wednesday’s vote, aware it could trigger a deeper escalation of partisan censure efforts. “People forget that we can be in the minority someday,” one House Republican said. “But it’s also hard to defend her comments.”

Democrats might now pull back on their retaliatory measures. A similar Mills censure effort was dropped after a GOP-led effort targeting Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was defeated on the House floor earlier this month.

Republican leaders vowed Wednesday to barrel forward with a stopgap funding bill in the coming days as Democrats threatened to oppose it in favor of their own alternative — raising the chances for an Oct. 1 government shutdown.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Wednesday morning that a vote on the GOP-written bill unveiled Tuesday is expected “likely Friday” amid Democratic objections about a lack of bipartisan negotiations.

“We’re going to do our job, and that’s all we can do, is do our job,” he said. “If Democrats want to shut the government down and continue to hold America hostage because they don’t like the results of the election, the American people are fed up with that kind of childish politics.”

While House GOP leaders have pushed their members for earlier action, they believe Friday morning is the likeliest option for the vote. Hard-liners and others are pushing leaders to stick to the chamber’s 72-hour-review rule.

GOP leaders are also still working to win the votes of several undecided Republicans, including Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), but are confident they are on track to pass the measure by the end of the week. “Like any big vote, they’re always tight,” Scalise said Wednesday.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said in a brief interview he was expecting a “Friday morning” vote, saying that was “close enough” to fulfilling the 72-hour rule. GOP leaders have privately acknowledged a Thursday vote could cost them votes among hard-liners, and they can’t afford to lose many Republicans with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) already a hard “no.”

“I suspect leadership knows it’s easier to get guys to a yes when we’re following the rules than not,” said another Republican involved in the conversations granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Senate Republicans, who want to act quickly on the House bill, are closely watching the House action as they plan their own schedule.

If the House votes Friday, the earliest the Senate would be able to vote is Monday. While voting on Thursday could theoretically move up that schedule a day, a number of Republican senators want to attend activist Charlie Kirk’s funeral Sunday, making a vote that day unlikely.

Furthermore, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss chamber scheduling, senators are not eager to return Monday only to leave again for an already scheduled recess for Rosh Hashanah. Instead, senators would likely return next Thursday, after the Jewish holiday, the people said.

The scheduling conflicts come as the Sept. 30 funding expiration looms and as Senate Democrats threaten to use the chamber’s filibuster rule to block the GOP stopgap.

“In the Senate, it takes 60 votes,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. “So that means Republicans will need to work with us. If they can’t even bother to have a conversation with Democrats, then it’s Republicans who the American people will know are causing a shutdown in two weeks.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated Wednesday that Republicans see nothing to negotiate on the “clean” stopgap, which would extend current funding through Nov. 21. “These guys are trying to take a hostage here,” he said.

Speaker Mike Johnson, asked about the prospect of Senate Democrats blocking the House stopgap, said in a brief interview Tuesday that he hoped that wouldn’t happen.

“There would be no reason to, because it’s clean and short term.” Asked if he would work on a backup plan in that case, he replied, “We’re going to see what happens.”

But House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole signaled some support Wednesday for Republicans working on a Plan B if Senate Democrats do block the GOP-led stopgap as they’re threatening.

“I certainly would,” Cole said in a brief interview, but he acknowledged it was “a leadership decision.”

Cole, asked if the talks could be salvaged at that point to stave off a shutdown, replied, “I don’t know.”

The comments came as tensions between normally cordial appropriators appear to be reaching a breaking point. Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Tuesday accused Cole of having “pulled out” of bipartisan talks and “produced a one-sided CR.”

“Where are the Republican leaders?” Murray said. “If Republicans can’t even sit down with [Democratic leaders] to simply have a conversation, then they cannot govern.”

Cole retorted Wednesday that Democrats were threatening to oppose a stopgap funding bill “they asked for” and are now planning to unveil their own alternative that adds on health care provisions and other measures GOP leaders are opposing.

“We gave them the time frame and a clean bill, now they’re wanting to put other things in,” he said, adding that health care and other issues Democrats want to tackle “ought to be dealt with in separate discussions.”

FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Wednesday that he is barred by recent court orders from releasing thousands of documents connected to disgraced sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’m not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity,” Patel said during the second day of Congressional oversight hearings after Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) challenged him on why he hasn’t released more of the files.

But Patel appears to be mischaracterizing those recent court orders, which came amid a hurried effort by the Trump administration to ask federal judges for permission to release grand jury materials stemming from the case of Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

Judges considering the ask said it appeared to be an effort to confuse the public, noting that the materials consisted of only a few dozen pages of hearsay — much of which became public during court proceedings — and were dwarfed by the FBI’s massive trove of records.

In fact, one of the judges who ruled on the grand jury matter — and who presided over Epstein’s criminal case before he died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019 — said the Trump administration had the power to release the records.

“The government is the logical party to make comprehensive disclosure to the public of the Epstein files,” U.S. District Judge Richard Berman wrote last month, emphasizing that the materials in the FBI’s possession are not subject to typical secrecy of grand jury material.

Berman, a Clinton appointee, called the Trump administration’s effort to seek release of the limited grand jury material an apparent “diversion from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the government’s possession.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) pressed Patel on this point, suggesting that the grand jury orders had no bearing on his ability to release more materials. Patel then cited other sealed orders and protective orders from Epstein and Maxwell’s criminal cases that he said barred the release of additional information.

“Why are you not going to a court, like you did for the grand jury testimony?” Goldman wondered. “You are hiding the Epstein files, Mr. Patel. You are part of the cover-up.”