Speaker Mike Johnson passed another major test today in the narrowly divided House, muscling through a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown. It puts Senate Democrats in a politically precarious position, with government money sent to run dry Friday night. The six-month funding bill passed 217-213, Scott Wong, Kyle Stewart, Sahil Kapur and Rebecca Kaplan report from Capitol Hill. Just one House Republican, the conservative Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted against it. And just one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden, who represents a district President Donald Trump carried in Maine, voted for it. The outcome is a victory for GOP leaders and the White House, who do not want to see a shutdown in the first two months of the new administration and are eager to move on to advancing Trump’s agenda on the border, taxes and other policy areas. Over the past several days, Trump and his top aides called undecided Republicans to urge them to back the funding bill, multiple sources familiar with the calls told NBC News. And ahead of the vote Tuesday morning, Vice President JD Vance huddled with House Republicans at the Capitol to rally support. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., one of the Republicans who were on the fence, voted for the bill after she said she visited the White House earlier in the day. But the drama is far from over. Republicans control 53 seats in the Senate, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has made clear he’s firmly against the funding bill. That means at least eight Democratic senators would have to support it to cross the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and send it to Trump’s desk. House Democratic leaders were staunchly against the bill. They blasted Republicans for drafting the bill on a partisan basis and argued they gave the Trump administration too much discretion in how to spend certain pots of money. Senate Democratic leaders, however, have stayed mum. After an unusually long Senate Democratic lunch meeting on Tuesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declined to state his position on the bill, a sign that his members lack consensus on the path forward. Publicly, many Senate Democrats said they wanted to see how the House voted first before weighing in. But Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said he would vote for the bill. "I refuse to burn the village down and to claim to save it," Fetterman said. "I probably won't agree with many facets of that CR, but when the choice is about shutting the government down, I don't want to be involved with that." Read more → Massie fallout: Trump’s patience appears to be running thin with Massie, who also voted against the House GOP’s budget resolution last month. Trump said on Truth Social he would “lead the charge” to find a primary opponent to challenge him next year.
But as Melanie Zanona reports, that didn’t sit well with Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. During a closed-door House GOP caucus Tuesday morning, Roy said he didn’t appreciate Trump’s threat, according to two sources in the room. Roy also called on Republican leadership to stand up for Massie, which Johnson later did at a news conference. Read more →
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