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NDAA delays pile up as GOP leaders work through last-minute snags

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Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are scrambling to hammer out a host of complex, 11th-hour intraparty policy fights in the massive annual defense policy bill, delaying the release of final legislative text beyond the expected date of Thursday, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations.

They are still pushing to release text of the sprawling bill by the end of the weekend, according to two of the people. But GOP leaders are going back and forth with White House officials about a raft of final issues, including Senate housing legislation that the administration wants but a key House committee chair opposes.

President Donald Trump and his deputies are eager to address housing costs, and top Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio told a closed-door meeting of House Republicans earlier Wednesday that Republicans need to focus more on housing issues ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

With White House officials digging in, congressional GOP leaders are now considering whether to add a revised or scaled down version of the Senate’s “ROAD to Housing” legislation to the Pentagon bill, but no final decisions have been made, according to the people. House Financial Services Chair French Hill has previously opposed the parts of the measure and said in a statement late Wednesday that “any housing package must have the buy-in” of his committee.

“Given our Conference has not seen any text, it’s unclear how we could support its inclusion in the NDAA,” Hill said.

Other issues GOP leaders are still working through include whether to add in new restrictions on U.S. investments in China, as well as provisions that would expand coverage for in vitro fertilization and other fertility services for military families under the Defense Department’s Tricare health system.

GOP leaders are reviewing the IVF expansion, which was included in both the House and Senate-passed defense bills. Pushed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and others, the provision wasn’t included in last year’s defense bill amid concerns about the practice from some conservatives.

A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that he “has clearly and repeatedly stated he is supportive of access to IVF when sufficient pro-life protections are in place, and he will continue to be supportive when it is done responsibly and ethically.”

The last-minute moves could weigh heavily on how easily Republican leaders can get the votes needed to pass the sprawling Pentagon bill, which the House aims to do next week.

The annual National Defense Authorization Act typically passes with broad bipartisan support. Johnson won passage of a hard-right version of the defense bill in September with just the support of a handful of Democrats, while the Senate cleared its own version with support from both parties.

Bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees made quick work of their negotiations on a compromise defense bill, which largely concluded before Thanksgiving.

The legislation was then handed up to House and Senate leaders to hammer out what provisions that fall outside of Armed Services’ jurisdiction would be attached. Top lawmakers on those panels have cautioned against attaching unrelated issues that don’t have broad support and could tank the final bill.

House and Senate leaders have already had to retreat on some fronts. Trump urged lawmakers to include a contentious moratorium on state regulations for artificial intelligence backed by House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and other Republicans. But the effort foundered, and Scalise this week conceded the NDAA “wasn’t the best place for this to fit.”

Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.

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Congress

Shutdown likely to continue at least into Tuesday

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The partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning is on track to continue at least into Tuesday, which is the earliest the House is now expected to vote on a $1.2 trillion funding package due to opposition from Democrats and internal GOP strife.

House Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday meeting of the House Rules Committee to prepare the massive Senate-passed spending bill for the floor. According to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the procedural measure teeing up a final vote would not happen until Tuesday, with final passage following if that is successful.

That’s one day later than GOP leaders had hoped. Their previous plan was to pass the bill with Democratic help under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.

But that plan was complicated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telling Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation Saturday that Democratic leadership would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, according to the two people and another person granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

The Tuesday plan remains tentative as GOP leaders scramble to navigate tensions inside their own conference, which could make passing the procedural measure difficult. Some conservative hard-liners, for instance, want to attach a sweeping elections bill to the package.

Jeffries said in a MS NOW interview Saturday that Republicans “cannot simply move forward with legislation taking a my way or the highway approach” while noting that House Democrats are set to have “a discussion about the appropriate way forward” in a Sunday evening caucus call — first reported by Blue Light News.

He did not rule out that Democrats might support the Senate-passed spending package, which funds the majority of federal agencies through Sept. 30 while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security — including controversial immigration enforcement agencies.

Democrats, Jeffries said, want “a robust, ironclad path to bringing about the type of change that the American people are demanding” in immigration enforcement.

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Here’s what federal programs are headed for a (possibly brief) shutdown

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Government funding is set to lapse at midnight Friday for the military and many domestic programs, but cash will continue to flow at a slew of federal agencies Congress already funded.

House leaders are aiming to send a funding package to President Donald Trump Monday, days after the Senate passed the legislation just before the deadline to avert a partial shutdown.

The effect on most federal programs is expected to be minor, and employees who are furloughed would miss just one day of work if the House acts on schedule — which is not assured.

This time, many of the services that have the greatest public impact when shuttered — like farm loans, SNAP food assistance to low-income households and upkeep at national parks — will continue. That’s because Congress already funded some agencies in November and earlier this month, including the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs, as well as military construction projects, the EPA, congressional operations, the FDA and federal science programs.

Still, the spending package congressional leaders are trying to clear for Trump’s signature next week contains the vast majority of the funding Congress approves each year to run federal programs, including $839 billion for the military.

Besides the Pentagon, funding will lapse for several major nondefense agencies beginning early Saturday morning.

That includes federal transportation, labor, housing, education and health programs, along with the IRS, independent trade agencies and foreign aid. The departments of Homeland Security, State and Treasury will also be hit by the shutdown.

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Senate passes $1.2T government funding deal — but a brief shutdown is certain

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The Senate passed a compromise spending package Friday, clearing a path for Congress to avert a lengthy government shutdown.

The 71-29 vote came a day after Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump struck a deal to attach two weeks of Homeland Security funding to five spending bills that will fund the Pentagon, State Department and many other agencies until Sept. 30.

The Senate’s vote won’t avert a partial shutdown that will start early Saturday morning since House lawmakers are out of town and not scheduled to return until Monday.

During a private call with House Republicans Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson said the likeliest route to House passage would be bringing the package up under a fast-track process Monday evening. That would require a two-thirds majority — and a significant number of Democratic votes.

The $1.2 trillion package could face challenges in the House, especially from conservative hard-liners who have said they would vote against any Senate changes to what the House already passed. Many House Democrats are also wary of stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions.

If the Trump-blessed deal ultimately gets signed into law, Congress will have approved more than 95 percent of federal funding — leaving only a full-year DHS bill on its to-do list. Congress has already funded several agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Justice.

“These are fiscally responsible bills that reflect months of hard work and deliberation from members on both parties and both sides of the Capitol,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said before the final vote.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued shutdown guidance for agencies not already funded, which include furloughs of some personnel.

Republicans agreeing to strip out the full-year DHS bill and replace it with a two-week patch is a major win for Democrats. They quickly unified behind a demand to split off and renegotiate immigration enforcement funding after federal agents deployed to Minnesota fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti last week.

But Democrats will still need to negotiate with the White House and congressional Republicans about what, if any, policy changes they are willing to codify into law as part of a long-term bill. Republicans are open to some changes, including requiring independent investigations. But they’ve already dismissed some of Democrats’ main demands, including requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests.

“If Republicans are serious about the very reasonable demands Democrats have put forward on ICE, then there is no good reason we can’t come together very quickly to produce legislation. It should take less than two weeks,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday.

Republicans have demands of their own, and many believe the most likely outcome is that another DHS patch will be needed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, wants a future vote on legislation barring federal funding for cities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Other Republicans and the White House have pointed to it as a key issue in the upcoming negotiations.

“I am demanding that my solution to fixing sanctuary cities at least have a vote. You’re going to put ideas on the floor to make ICE better? I want to put an idea on the floor to get to the root cause of the problem,” Graham said.

The Senate vote caps off a days-long sprint to avoid a second lengthy shutdown in the span of four months. Senate Democrats and Trump said Thursday they had a deal, only for it to run into a snag when Graham delayed a quick vote as he fumed over a provision in the bill, first reported by POLITICO, related to former special counsel Jack Smith’s now-defunct investigation targeting Trump.

Senate leaders ultimately got the agreement back on track Friday afternoon by offering votes on seven changes to the bill, all of which failed. The Senate defeated proposals to cut refugee assistance, strip out all earmarks from the package and redirect funding for ICE to Medicaid, among others.

Graham raged against the House’s move to overturn a law passed last year allowing senators to sue for up to $500,000 per incident if their data had been used in former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2020 election. But he backed off his threats to hold up the bill after announcing that leaders had agreed to support a future vote on the matter.

“You jammed me,” Graham said on the floor Friday. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this.”

Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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