Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that while bipartisan discussions are ongoing around the fate of soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies, abortion restrictions are a major sticking point.

“There are conversations that continue, but as you know the Hyde issue is a difficult and challenging one on both sides,” Thune told reporters.

The fight over the so-called Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion, has been looming over any potential deal to extend the enhanced Obamacare tax credits. And GOP lawmakers, not to mention a cadre of influential anti-abortion groups, quickly noticed the White House’s framework was silent on the issue.

The White House ultimately held off on releasing that framework as it faced a mountain of GOP criticism from conservatives who felt caught off guard that Trump would back a two-year extension of the subsidies — even when paired with new income caps and other restrictions.

The Senate is expected to vote next week on a proposal from Democrats to extend the ACA subsidies, but Democrats haven’t yet detailed what bill they will put on the chamber floor.

Republicans are separately working on a potential counterproposal that would come from Sens. Mike Crapo and Bill Cassidy, chairs of the Senate Finance and HELP Committees, respectively. GOP senators also have yet to decide whether they’ll roll out that plan in time for a vote next week, though, and the substance remains in flux.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Monday night that while efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement persist, many lawmakers believe they are ultimately headed toward a failed vote next week. Some senators are already looking at Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cut-off for a health care deal.

“I don’t think we’re close to a 60-vote threshold yet,” Thune said of bipartisan health care talks.

There’s also uncertainty on the other side of the Capitol about how Republicans will respond to the looming expiration of the subsidies, which could cause premiums to skyrocket in the new year. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at his weekly press conference that he “didn’t commit to” a short-term extension during a closed-door House GOP members’ meeting Tuesday morning but that “there will be a Republican response to this.”

“What I’ve got to do is build consensus deliberately around the best ideas,” Johnson said. “We’re pulling those ideas together … I can’t project in advance what that will be because I don’t know what the consensus is in that room.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Rep. Elise Stefanik is taking aim directly at Speaker Mike Johnson over signals a provision she has championed won’t be included in the annual defense policy bill the House wants to pass next week — marking a notable and unusual split inside the House GOP leadership team.

Stefanik, a New York Republican who serves as a member of Johnson’s leadership team, said in a social media post Tuesday morning she would help tank the National Defense Authorization Act if it doesn’t incorporate her provision that would require the FBI to notify Congress when it opens investigations into candidates running for federal office.

“This is an easy one,” the New York Republican posted on social media Tuesday morning. “This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.”

Stefanik also blamed Johnson for the expected omission.

“[T]he Speaker is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more,” she wrote on X. “He is siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.”

Stefanik’s proposal, which would require the public disclosure of all “FBI counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office,” is designed to combat what many Republicans consider politically motivated investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 election and former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the election in 2020.

Asked about whether he thwarted the provision’s inclusion in the NDAA, Johnson said Stefanik’s retelling of events is “false.” He said he supported the provision and that there could still be a path for its passage in some other legislative vehicle.

“I don’t exactly know why Elise just won’t call me,” he said, recalling that he told his colleague over text, “What are you talking about? This hasn’t even made it to my level.”

Johnson explained the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, who he suspected have jurisdiction over this issue, had not agreed to include the language, leading to the provision being dropped from the defense bill. A spokesperson for Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary panel, deferred to Johnson’s explanation.

Stefanik quickly responded in another post on X, “Just more lies from the Speaker,” while insisting the Intelligence Committee, on which Stefanik sits, has jurisdiction over her provision.

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have been negotiating the NDAA for weeks and could roll out a compromise package as soon as Thursday; Stefanik said in her social media post that she got early details of that package in an Intelligence Committee briefing.

The narrow GOP majority in the House means that Johnson can barely afford to lose any Republican support if Democrats reject the legislation en masse, but it’s far from guaranteed Stefanik’s opposition will doom the NDAA on its own.

While most Democrats opposed the hard-right version of the Pentagon bill the House passed in September, more Democrats might come on board to support a compromise measure and make up for a shortfall of votes on the Republican side of the aisle. The NDAA is typically a broadly bipartisan package.

Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

House GOP leaders are trying to steady their restive conference as they seek to avert disaster in a Tennessee special election for a ruby-red GOP-controlled seat on Tuesday night.

NRCC Chair Richard Hudson told House Republicans in their closed-door meeting Tuesday morning that Republican Matt Van Epps will win the race. But he also said members need to remember special elections are special, according to four people in the room, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

National Republicans have had to intervene to attempt to rescue Van Epps from a potential defeat in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, a conservative stronghold President Donald Trump won by more than 20 points.

The race between Van Epps and Democrat Aftyn Behn has attracted millions in outside spending from both sides, despite the typically uncompetitive nature of the district.

Republicans in the room for Hudson’s remarks Tuesday morning, however, did not feel much better about the state of the conference and the special election ahead of next year’s midterms.

“It was not overly comforting,” one House Republican who attended the meeting said, noting that some GOP members quietly glanced over at each other as the North Carolina congressman argued a win is a win.

Another House Republican predicted the GOP conference would spend some time reeling from the fallout of the race, given that it shouldn’t have been competitive in the first place.

“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic and the conference would “explode,” the Republican added.