Just as the government funding deadline arrived early Saturday, Congress passed
an interim plan to prevent a shutdown after a chaotic few days and nights in Washington.
President Biden is expected to sign the funding bill on Saturday.
The week’s turmoil on Capitol Hill, marking the close of the 118th Congress, offers a glimpse into the uphill battle the 119th Congress is likely to face when the GOP has an even slimmer majority in the House.
The spending deal comes just one month before President-elect Trump returns to the White House with an ambitious agenda that may be tougher to implement
than expected.
Also in the wee hours, the Senate approved changes
to Social Security laws, boosting benefits for 2 million retired public servants. It also approved a bill that transfers the RFK Stadium site to the District of Columbia.
The debt ceiling hike
, which Trump demanded be part of the continuing resolution to extend government funding until March 14, did not make the cut Friday, but is surely on lawmakers minds as they leave Washington and look to the next session.
President Biden and his administration were largely absent from the onerous negotiations on government funding that gripped Capitol Hill this week.
Instead, President-elect Trump and his allies were the ones wrestling with lawmakers over a continuing resolution as a government shutdown appeared increasingly inevitable.
The White House on Friday blew off a host of questioning
over Biden’s absence from the talks, insisting they were staying out of it in part because it was Republicans who had to clean up a “mess” they created. But, Biden’s silence, with no indication that administration officials were heading to Capitol Hill as the funding deadline approached, could prove damaging to the president’s final days in office.
“We’re just not seeing them. And he’s completely disappeared,” GOP strategist Doug Heye said of the president. “Biden is AWOL and it’s reasonable to question whether some of that is because he’s just not up to the task.”
When peppered with questions about why Biden has made no public statements or appearances regarding the funding fight, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was part of a “strategy” to make it clear that “this is for Republicans in the House to fix.”
That did little to deter more questions in similar veins about what Biden’s plans were if the government shutdown over the holidays, why Biden himself wasn’t speaking to reporters, with some reporters asking if Americans deserve to hear from the president hours before a shutdown.
Others also asked about Biden’s leadership position at the moment and why Biden doesn’t want to counter Trump and Elon Musk’s messaging on government funding.
Some Democrats took note that, on the flip side, lawmakers aren’t pleading with the president to jump in and help reach a funding agreement, pointing to a larger issue that his party is ready for the Biden years to end.
“The bigger story is that no one is asking him to be involved. Democrats in Washington just want the Bidens and their people to get the hell out of town so we can move on from them,” a Democratic strategist told The Hill.
If Biden had been more involved with continuing resolution negotiations, former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) questioned if he would even be listened to considering how absent he has been.
“President Biden has been in lame duck status for most of this year. Even if he had something to say, it doesn’t seem there would be anyone listening,” Curbelo said. “His only strategy is to let President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Speaker own the chaos, since it was their decision to torpedo that bipartisan agreement [Speaker Mike] Johnson had built.”
The White House did release two written statements on the matter during the week. On Thursday, the administration bashed the Republicans’ plan B
as a “billionaire giveaway” before it failed on the House floor. It has yet to weigh in onHouse Republicans proposals since, other than insisting that the only way to fund the government is for lawmakers to pass the first spending agreement that was negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and that Democrats were on board for.
The White House approach is in stark contrast to that of Trump, who injecting himself fully in the fight, at one point even torpedoing the initial agreement and asking for the debt ceiling to be negotiated before he takes office.
Trump then warned Republicans who voted for that measure that they would be primaried if they support legislation that doesn’t tackle the debt limit.
When questioned about tackling the debt limit as part of the CR, Jean-Pierre said Biden’s “focus right now is keeping the government open” without addressing that subject matter. Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) negotiated a debt ceiling hike during Biden’s term after weeks of back-and-forth negotiations that the White House was much more involved in.
Former Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), a former House Democratic caucus chair, argued there was no need for Biden to get involved in inter-party chaos among Republicans.
“I really don’t see how this is the president’s issue,” said Crowley. “Clearly Johnson, he can’t govern with the majority he has. How’s he going to do this when he has less of a majority?”
Other Democrats agreed, saying that the struggle to fund the government is the Republicans’ problem.
“This seems like an inter-party squabble, and I’m not sure that Biden or any Democrat has a role in solving it,” said Ivan Zapien, a former Democratic National Committee official.
Meanwhile, a former Democratic leadership staffer said that the negotiations are the problems of Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.), not Biden’s, considering he is on his way out.
“These negotiations will shape next year’s legislative and political dynamic on multiple levels, so by definition, the center of gravity for Democrats is with Jeffries and Schumer,” the former staffer said. “Unified Republican control next year will inherently be constrained by narrow margins, so Jeffries and Schumer will continue to ensure that Democratic votes are not taken for granted.”
Still, Biden risks being blamed for a shutdown under his watch, some Trump is trying to take advantage of
Trump on Friday morning called for there to be a shutdown
while Biden is president and not after he is sworn in in a month. Trump had also insisted that a debt ceiling hike also happen during Biden’s administration to avoid any blame that came with that.
When questioned about Trump’s comments, Jean-Pierre again blamed Republicans for sinking the initial measure.
Trump was president during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which occurred just before Christmas in 2019 over funding for his border wall
. The second longest was under former President Clinton in 1995 over spending cuts, and the third longest was under former President Obama in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act.
At the time, those shutdowns had mixed public opinions over who was to blame.
After the 2013 Obama-era shutdown, Republicans expanded their majority in the House and won the Senate in the 2014 midterms. After the Clinton-era shutdown that lasted through December 1996, the president was reelected. Trump was reelected in November, despite the lengthy shutdown in 2019 and the House and Senate are both going to be controlled by the GOP in January.
Biden’s strategy to not give public remarks and not sending his staff up to Capitol Hill is one way the White House thinks he can stay above the fray, Crowley said.
“Is this all about like blemishing Democrats to some degree? It makes absolutely no sense,” Crowley said. “They had the agreement. They went back on their word. It wasn’t Democrats, and so certainly wasn’t the president.”
He added, “I don’t really see how they can blame a lame duck Democratic president when a new president is coming in in just a matter of a few weeks.”
The Senate voted overwhelmingly in the early hours of Saturday to pass legislation to boost Social Security benefits for more than 2 million Americans.
The legislation will repeal two statutes that have reduced payouts to state and local police, firefighters, teachers and other public sector workers and their spouses for years.
The legislation passed by a vote of 76-20. President Biden is expected to sign it into law.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the bill’s sponsor, said it would address “horrendous inequity.”
She highlighted the plight of teachers in Maine who worked their whole careers in the public sector under a state retirement system that did not include Social Security and as a result received a fraction of the Social Security benefits earned by spouses who worked in the private sector after they died.
Collins has been working on the issue for more than 20 years, and first introduced the bill in 2005. The bill will help more than 20,000 people in her home state.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) talked about his former high school civics teacher, Ms. Betty, who saw her husband’s Social Security benefit cut to a fraction of what she expected because she spent her life working in public schools.
“When her husband passed away, her husband worked at [an] Exxon refinery … her social security was cut to a fraction because she had worked in the public sector as a teacher,” he said.
Cassidy said his former teacher would have received better benefits in retirement “if she had never worked at all.”
The legislation will increase benefits for more than 70,000 people in Louisiana.
The bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, will repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), enacted in 1983, which reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who receive government pensions not covered by Social Security
It will also repeal the Government Pension Offset, enacted in 1977, which reduces benefits for spouses, widows and widowers whose spouses receive public sector pensions.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the bill’s Democratic sponsor, said the legislation would help bus drivers, teachers and cafeteria workers in the public schools system.
He talked about a woman who drove a bus for disabled children in Lawrence County, Ohio, for 40 years whose Social Security benefits would be reduced from $2,100 a month to $500 a month under current law.
The Congressional Budget Office projects the legislation will add $196 billion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years and speed up Social Security’s projected insolvency by six months.
Senators passed the measure after defeating an amendment sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to offset the cost of the expanded benefits by gradually raising the retirement age from 67 to 70 over 12 years.
“If we give new people more money, we have to take it from somewhere. We have to either borrow it or print it, but it has to come from somewhere,” Paul said.
“You can’t just push the bankruptcy of Social Security and say, ‘Well, yeah, it will go bankrupt in about nine years but maybe I won’t be here,” he said. “Shouldn’t we care about the future of Social Security.”
Paul said the vote on his amendment would reveal “who are he truly fiscally responsible people in the Senate.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another fiscal conservative, argued that WEP was enacted to “fix serious problems in how Social Security benefits were calculated,” asserting that prior to it individuals with mixed careers in the public and private sectors often received more in Social Security benefits than they were entitled to receive.
He acknowledged that the laws designed to keep people from receiving more than they earned in benefits may have needed to be finetuned but argued that repealing WEP and GPO altogether would return the nation to “a broken model that unfairly rewards some at the expense of others.”
He argued the bill would “force” the 96 percent of the workforce that contributes to Social Security to “subsidize overly generous benefits for the 4 percent of the workforce, those who do not participate in social security and instead contribute to noncovered pensions.”
Edward Kelly, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, applauded passage of the bill.
“Congress broke a promise 40 years ago to millions of Americans when it enacted the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset,” Kelly said. “Today, U.S. senators from both parties joined to right that wrong, ensuring that retired fire fighters and other dedicated public servants get the Social Security benefits they’ve paid into and earned.”
The legislation passed the House last month by a vote of 327 to 75.
More than 30 House Republicans voted against the government funding bill to avert a shutdown on Friday night.
The legislation cleared the lower chamber
with a 366-34-1 vote, surpassing the two-thirds requirement needed as the Republican House leadership brought it up under the suspension of the rules process. Every member of the Democratic caucus, outside of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas), who voted present, supported the modified funding package alongside 170 GOP lawmakers.
Here are the 34 Republican House members who voted against the continuing resolution to keep the government funded just hours before the midnight deadline:
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)
Sen.-elect and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.)
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.)
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas)
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.)
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas)
Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)
Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.)
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.)
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.)
Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.)
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.)
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)
Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas)
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) presented the bill just a few hours before members voted on it. The package would fund the government at current levels, designate billions for disaster relief and extend the farm bill for one year. The bill did not raise the debt limit, something President-elect Trump advocated for as the legislation was negotiated.
Johnson, whose speakership gavel has come into question
in light of his handling of funding negotiations, touted the package as “America First’ legislation.”
“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington. President Trump will return to D.C. and to the White House, and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House. Things are going to be very different around here,” Johnson said
.
“This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that, that moment where we can put our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending for 2025,” he added.
The Senate on Friday confirmed President Biden’s 235th judicial nominee, surpassing the record of 234 judges confirmed during President-elect Trump’s first term in office.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) marked the achievement after the Senate confirmed Serena Raquel Murillo to serve as district judge for the Central District of California.
“This Majority has now confirmed more judges under President Biden than any majority has confirmed in decades. This is historic!” Schumer announced on the Senate floor.
“We have confirmed more judges than under the Trump administration, more judges than any administration in this century, and more judges than under any administration going back decades,” he said.
Biden has appointed one Supreme Court justice
— Ketanji Brown Jackson — 45 appellate court judges, 187 district judges and two International Trade Court judges.
Two-thirds of those judges are women, two-thirds are minorities and two-fifths are minority women.
Schumer noted that one out of every four active judges on the federal bench has now been nominated by Biden and confirmed by the Senate Democratic majority.
He said the Biden nominees placed on the bench include former consumer protection lawyers, labor lawyers, voting rights experts, civil rights lawyers, federal prosecutors, public defenders and teachers.
“For a long time the norm was to prioritize judicial nominees who came from a privileged pool. Most of them were prosecutors or from large corporate law firms. Most were male, most were white. But when Senate Democrats entered the majority, we cast a wider net,” he said.
Schumer thanked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for keeping on top of the administration to submit the necessary paperwork to advance the nominees and churning through the list of candidates.
“The Biden administration had fewer vacancies to fill than the Trump administration did — in fact, less than half. Still, we succeeded beyond what any of us could have hoped for: 235 judges confirmed,” Durbin said on the floor.
The Senate confirmed 234 of Trump’s judicial nominees during his first four years in the White House.
The Senate confirmed 170 of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees over eight years and 204 of President George W. Bush’s 204 judicial picks over eight years.
The Biden administration on Friday withdrew a pending regulation governing transgender athletes, abandoning an effort to provide some protections for transgender students that the incoming Trump administration has said it opposes.
The administration also withdrew a proposal to cancel student debt for roughly 38 million Americans, which the Education Department said was due to “operational challenges.”
“With the time remaining in this administration, the Department is focused on several priorities including court-ordered settlements and helping borrowers manage the final elements of the return to repayment,” the department wrote in its explanation
.
On the transgender athlete regulation — a proposal that involved amending Title IX, the landmark civil rights law preventing sex discrimination — the Education Department said it received more than 150,000 public comments during a 30-day comment period that “offered a broad spectrum of opinions.”
It also noted that there are several ongoing lawsuits related to the application of Title IX in the context of gender identity, including several challenging a companion regulation the administration finalized in April that more broadly protects gay and transgender students.
“In light of the comments received and those various pending court cases, the Department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time,” the Education Department wrote on Friday
.
The Biden administration unveiled the proposal
last April, saying state-level bans on transgender athletes “fail to account for differences among students across grade and education levels.”
The proposal would have prohibited policies that categorically ban transgender student-athletes from participating on sports teams that match their gender identity but would have still allowed schools to enforce some restrictions, particularly in competitive sports.
Schools would have still been able to bar trans athletes from competition in pursuit of “important educational objectives,” like fairness or preventing sports-related injuries, a senior administration official said at the time. However, “some objectives, such as the disapproval of transgender students or a desire to harm a particular student, would not qualify,” they said.
The proposed regulation left parties on both sides of the issue unhappy. Some advocates for transgender rights slammed the regulation
for laying out a roadmap for schools to ban trans athletes legally and accused President Biden of backtracking on a promise to protect them. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the proposal
“indefensible and embarrassing.”
Opponents of the administration’s rule said it undermined fairness in girl’s and women’s sports.
President-elect Trump has said he opposes allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports and has signaled he will sign an executive order
banning participation once he takes office in January. A majority of Americans — 69 percent in one Gallup poll
— believe transgender student-athletes should only be permitted to participate in sports that align with their birth sex, rather than their gender identity.
Twenty-six states since 2020 have passed laws prohibiting transgender students, sometimes as young as kindergarten, from participating on school sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project
, which tracks LGBTQ laws.
Federal judges have temporarily blocked laws from taking effect in Arizona, Utah, West Virginia and Idaho — the latter two of which have asked the Supreme Court to intervene
— and a Montana judge permanently barred the state from enforcing its prohibition on trans athletes competing in college sports in 2022.
In withdrawing its regulations on Friday, the Biden administration prevents the incoming Trump administration from revising and implementing either rule with few bureaucratic hurdles. The next administration can pursue its own regulations on the same issues but will have to start from scratch in a cumbersome rulemaking process that can take up to several years.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said Friday that, of the 16.6 million signees this year, 2 million were new signups.
“We are on track for a record high number of plan selections for this year’s Open Enrollment,” the agency said.
“The record-breaking enrollment in Marketplace coverage speaks volumes about the critical need for health care coverage,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement.
ObamaCare enrollment has hit record highs in every year of the Biden administration, after falling under the Trump administration. The newest numbers come after CMS extended open enrollment by three days amid lagging sign ups.
Enrollment tends to surge in the final days of signups as people wait until the last minute to sign up.
“Like so many of us, Marketplace enrollees can be procrastinators,” Cynthia Cox, vice president and director of the ACA program at KFF said in an email. “It’s also common for existing enrollees to passively renew their coverage by being automatically reenrolled into the same or similar plan as the previous year.”
Signups for health insurance that begins in February will continue through Jan. 15.
Last year, 21.3 million people signed up for insurance through the federal and state-based exchanges, an increase of 5 million over the previous year’s numbers.
The expanded ACA subsidies have been credited with helping boost signups. Those subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. With Republicans set to control a trifecta of power in the federal government next year, it seems unlikely they will be extended or made permanent as the Biden administration has called for.
Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.
Programming note: This newsletter will not publish next week. We’ll be back in your inboxes with the latest health news Dec. 30. Happy Holidays!
How policy will be impacting the health care sector this week and beyond:
House passes bill to avert government shutdown after whirlwind funding fight
The House approved legislation to avert a government shutdown hours before the deadline on Friday, sending the bill to the Senate for consideration after a whirlwind week on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Tina Smith (Minn.) are reintroducing legislation aimed at strengthening U.S. pharmaceutical supply chains, warning the U.S. is overly relying on other countries for medications. The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Defense and Enhancement Act was first introduced in 2020, not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill was spurred by concerns over the U.S.’s pharmaceutical …
Health officials on Wednesday confirmed the first severe case of bird flu in the U.S., causing a spike in online searches for symptoms of the virus. There have been more than 60 bird flu infections in people across the country since March. Nearly all have resulted in mild illness. Google searches for bird flu symptoms shot up 500 percent on Wednesday, with the virus topping all trending “symptoms” searches, according …
A coalition of Republican Senators have joined forces to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposals as he seeks confirmation as President-elect Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services.
The House approved legislation to avert a government shutdown hours before the deadline on Friday, sending the bill to the Senate for consideration … Read more
Recorded earlier The House voted to support a measure to keep the government funded past Friday night’s midnight shutdown deadline. The Senate … Read more
Proposed legislation would have tweaked a previous law to fix technical issues that are preventing veterans from receiving claims in court related to toxic water exposure.
Many veterans exposed to toxic water between Aug. 1, 1953, to Dec. 31, 1987, at North Carolina’s Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune will have to wait a little longer for relief after Congress failed to act.
“If we don’t pick this up immediately in January and push this through in 25, I think there will be many more veterans who go to their graves without seeing closure, without seeing justice,” said David Cook, executive director of the military and veterans group Special Operations Association of America.
A problem with the Camp Lejeune Justice Act of 2022, which allowed certain veterans from the base to sue the U.S. government for damages, was that it did not include language explicitly giving veterans the right to a jury trial.
To fix that, bills were introduced in the Senate and House judiciary committees this year clarifying the language, while also ensuring cases can be sped up by expanding eligibility to all district courts in the 4th Circuit Court jurisdiction instead of just the one federal court in North Carolina.
But the legislation failed to advance out of committee.
A major roadblock to passage in Congress were two Republicans: Sen. Dan Sullivan (Ala.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a person familiar.
It’s unclear exactly why the bill did not advance through Jordan’s committee.
Sullivan was concerned about the attorney fee caps in the legislation, at 20 percent for settlements and 25 percent for trials, the person familiar with the matter said.
The source noted that the legislation in the Congress was already a compromise reduction on the attorney fees, and it had wide support from veterans organizations.
The Hill reached out to the offices of Sullivan and Jordan for comment on this story. The Hill also requested comment from two of the main co-sponsors of the legislation, Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
A spokesperson for Tillis said the senator is “disappointed Congress could not come together” to pass the bill and that he will continue working with other members next year, but also disputed the account that Sullivan was the obstacle.
“I wouldn’t say that characterization is correct and I don’t think there is a story here,” the spokesperson said. “Senator Tillis has been working with members, including Senator Sullivan, to find consensus and get this bill across the finish line. The bill needed more deliberation and we just ran out of time this Congress.”
Around 200 veterans from Camp Lejeune have been compensated under a quick payment program, but more than 500,000 are awaiting relief.
Cook said the trouble on the Hill “really comes down to a couple things.”
“Number one is that there are a bunch of policymakers up on the Hill who are making decisions for veterans service members,” he said.
“And to me, the reason why we raised our right hand taking oath and go to far flung places for not that much money is basically to protect our freedom to choose,” he said. “And I thought the lawyer caps, unlike fee caps, was taking away, preemptively taking away, a choice a veteran should be making.”
Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Brad Dress — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.
Programming note: This newsletter will not publish next week. We’ll be back in your inboxes with the latest defense and national security news on Dec. 30. Happy Holidays!
The U.S. military killed an ISIS leader and another member in an airstrike in Syria on Thursday, the Pentagon revealed Friday. U.S. Central Command (Centcom) Forces targeted Abu Yousef, also known as Mahmud, in the Dayr az Zawr Province, an area formerly controlled by the toppled regime of Bashar Assad and Russian fighters, it said in a statement. Another unidentified ISIS member was also killed in the strike, according to …
Top U.S. officials are in Syria making the first face-to-face contact with rebel groups that took over the country in a lightning offensive earlier this month, their mission aimed at searching for kidnapped American journalist Austin Tice and other missing Americans. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, Near East senior adviser Daniel Rubinstein, and U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs …
U.S. service members could miss their paychecks over the holidays if the U.S. government shuts down this weekend, according to the Pentagon. Unless lawmakers reach some agreement before the end of Friday to fund the federal government, active-duty troops will not receive their end-of-month paychecks, reservists who report to drills will not be paid, and federal civilians will not be compensated if they are required to work …
A government shutdown will take effect Friday at midnight if Congress fails to pass temporary funding, which will have big implications for the military, including restricting pay for troops.
President Biden will travel to Rome, Italy and Vatican City from Jan. 9-12, where he will meet with Pope Francis and Italian leaders President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
U.S. diplomats landed Friday in Syria Friday to meet with the new transitional government and other officials.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), incoming chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a detailed proposal
to reform the Pentagon, focused on budgeting and acquisition.
Republican lawmakers want a return to “maximum pressure” on Iran in the second Trump administration and are widely open to the idea of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites if it’s the only way to prevent Tehran from wielding nuclear weapons.
House Republicans are scrambling to find a way to avoid a government shutdown after their second funding proposal was rejected, and are now planning … Read more
The House is set to vote on the third version of a spending bill to keep the government open at 5 p.m. Friday, with the shutdown deadline just hours … Read more
Opinions in The Hill
Op-eds related to defense & national security submitted to The Hill:
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Business & Economy
Business & Economy
The Big Story
House moves on plan C
The House on Friday will try again to avert a government shutdown, holding a vote on a revamped spending package that excludes the debt limit hike initially demanded by President-elect Trump.
The package would fund the government at current levels through March 14, extend the farm bill by one year and appropriate billions of dollars in disaster aid and assistance for farmers.
The same provisions were included in Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) plan B proposal that failed on the House floor Thursday night.
Without congressional action, large parts of the federal government would shut down just after midnight.
Johnson emerged from a tense two-hour GOP conference meeting in the Capitol basement with less than eight hours to go until the deadline to announce the developments and vow there would be no shutdown.
“There is a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward,” he told reporters.
“We will not have a government shutdown,” he continued. “And we will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck gets paid over the holidays.”
The House is expected to start voting on the bill between 5 and 5:30 p.m. ET.
The Hill’s Mychael Schnell, Mike Lillis and Emily Brooks have more here
.
Welcome to The Hill’s Business & Economy newsletter, we’re Aris Folley and Taylor Giorno — covering the intersection of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday she’s ready to stay in Washington “through Christmas” to fight off President-elect Trump’s demand to strip negotiated provisions out of a bill to fund the government into 2025.
President Biden announced on Friday he would be canceling more student debt for tens of thousands of public service workers, possibly his last major move on the issue before leaving office in a month.
The House is set to vote on the third version
of a spending bill to keep the government open at 5 p.m. Friday, with the shutdown deadline just hours away.
The new proposal
is reported to include government funding through March as well as disaster relief and farm assistance after days of turmoil on Capitol Hill.
“We will not have a government shutdown,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Friday. “And we will meet our obligations for our farmers who need aid, for the disaster victims all over the country, and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck gets paid over the holidays.”
Johnson unveiled a bipartisan funding deal on Tuesday evening, which was torpedoed Wednesday
after President-elect Trump and his close allies urged GOP lawmakers to oppose it.
Trump called for Congress to take up a debt ceiling hike, which was not mentioned at all in the first plan — a request many lawmakers took as a surprise
.
On Thursday, Johnson presented Plan B to lawmakers, nixing dozens of measures and including new language raising the debt ceiling. Trump backed the new plan
, but it failed to pass the House after all but two Democrats and a total of 38 Republicans opposed the bill.
Democrats fiercely opposed
the revamped deal, calling for a return to the original bipartisan plan and arguing the debt hike would allow Trump to move forward with tax cuts and new spending. Several Democratic lawmakers have continued this call
on Friday.
