House funding bills see mixed results as shutdown looms: live coverage

House Republicans failed to pass legislation to fund Agriculture, Rural Development and the Food and Drug Administration late Thursday night after more than two dozen moderate Republicans came out against a provision that would limit access to an abortion pill.

The chamber voted down the measure in a 191-237 vote, with 27 Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition.

The failed vote marks a setback for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has been working to clear fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills ahead of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline.

Passing the agriculture legislation — or the other 11 appropriations bills — would not help Congress fund the government and avoid a shutdown by Saturday’s midnight deadline, but House GOP leaders are hoping that the consideration of the single-subject funding measures will help sway hardline conservatives to support a stopgap bill to keep the lights on in Washington past the weekend deadline.

Thursday night’s failed vote, however, did not come as a total surprise.

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— Mychael Schnell and Aris Folley

House Republicans late Thursday night approved legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for fiscal year 2024.

The legislation cleared the chamber in a 220-208 vote.

The DHS funding bill includes $91.515 billion in total discretionary spending for the department. The money includes more than $2 billion to build a wall along the southern border, $496 million for 22,000 Border Patrol agents, and upwards of $3.55 billion for custody operations.

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— Mychael Schnell and Aris Folley

The House late Thursday night overwhelmingly approved $300 million in new aid to Ukraine.

The 311-117 vote came after House GOP leaders on Wednesday stripped the Ukraine assistance from a Pentagon funding bill. All “no” votes came from Republicans.

— Mychael Schnell

House Republicans approved legislation to fund the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2024, a success for GOP leaders after they decided to strip Ukraine funding from the legislation following two failed procedural votes.

The chamber cleared the measure in a 218-210 vote.

Like the State Department funding bill, approving the Pentagon measure will not help Congress avert a shutdown before the Sept. 30 government funding deadline, but House GOP leaders are hopeful that moving the legislation and other full-year funding measures will help convince conservatives to get on board with a short-term funding stopgap.

The Pentagon spending bill — which is the largest of the 12 full-year appropriations measures — has been a source of consternation for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and its passage marks an incremental win for the Speaker.

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— Mychael Schnell and Aris Folley

House Republicans on Thursday passed legislation to fund the State Department and foreign operations, clearing the bill despite some GOP lawmakers voicing opposition to provisions pertaining to Ukraine.

The chamber approved the measure in a 216-212 vote.

Passage of the bill will not help avert an and-of-the-month shutdown, but top Republicans are hopeful that moving the legislation — along with three other full-year funding bills — could make it easier for the House GOP conference to pass a funding stopgap.

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— Mychael Schnell and Aris Folley

The House has started a late series of votes that is slated to include final passage votes on:

• Fiscal year 2024 funding for the State Department and foreign operations
• Fiscal year 2024 funding for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Food and Drug Administration
• Fiscal year 2024 Pentagon funding
• Fiscal year 2024 DHS funding
• Ukraine aid

The full-year fiscal year 2024 bills won’t help avert a shutdown Saturday night, but GOP leaders were hopeful that moving the legislation would help convince Republican holdouts to vote for a short-term funding stopgap.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Thursday said moderate GOP lawmakers are “missing in action” on combating a government shutdown after some Republicans who said they would join an effort to force a vote on funding legislation have yet to do so.

The comment came during Jeffries’ weekly press conference in the Capitol when a reporter asked the Democratic leader if he has had any conversations with moderate Republicans about a potential “exit strategy” amid the looming shutdown.

The reporter mentioned Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who last week said he would join Democrats and sign a discharge petition — a mechanism to force a vote on legislation against the wishes of the Speaker — if House Republicans are unable to coalesce around a continuing resolution.

“There’s a discharge petition that is live at this very moment. It has 213 Democratic signatures. That is a vehicle that is available right now to end extreme MAGA Republican government shutdown crisis. And the Republicans are missing in action, nowhere to be found,” Jeffries told reporters.

“Talk a good game but nowhere to be found on a discharge petition that is an available vehicle, among other options that we might have accessible to us to end the shutdown crisis,” he added.

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— Mychael Schnell

The House advanced legislation that provides $300 million in aid to Ukraine on Thursday after GOP leaders stripped the funding from a defense spending bill amid opposition from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

The chamber voted 217-211 to adopt the rule — which governs debate on legislation — for the five-page bill, kicking off debate in the chamber. The legislation appropriates the $300 million for fiscal year 2024.

The $300 million in aid for Ukraine, which had initially been included in the Pentagon appropriations bill, has been a source of controversy within the House GOP conference, prompting Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to flip-flop on the matter three times ahead of Thursday’s vote.

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— Mychael Schnell

More than two dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus are pressing Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for answers on his plan to advance spending bills before advancing a short-term funding measure to avert a government shutdown.

The Thursday letter to McCarthy comes as he is preparing to bring a short-term spending bill that includes border security measures for a House vote on Friday, according to multiple House GOP members.

Hesitance from the Freedom Caucus members signal an uphill climb for getting that bill through the slim House GOP majority. The government is slated to shut down after 11:59 p.m. on Saturday unless Congress can pass a funding solution.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” said the letter, led by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and signed by 26 other members of the hardline conservative group.

READ MORE HERE.

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed Republicans for using a “fabricated image” in the first impeachment inquiry hearing into President Biden.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden after Republicans alleged the president and his son, Hunter Biden, profited from foreign business deals. The House Oversight and Accountability Committee held its first hearing Thursday.

Read more here.

– Lauren Irwin

Some of the Republican-invited witnesses at the GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing cast doubt on whether there was enough evidence to support an impeachment of President Biden.

Jonathan Turley, a go-to witness for conservatives in Congress, at one point told lawmakers that some of the details they’d gathered “really do gravitate in favor of the president.”

At another point, when asked to weigh in on GOP claims that the president’s son, Hunter Biden, was engaged in “influence peddling,” Turley said Congress has failed to do needed work to connect it to President Biden.

Read the full story here.

– Rebecca Beitsch

“Well that’s awkward,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said during the impeachment inquiry hearing in response to earlier testimony from GOP witness Jonathan Turley.

Turley, a a go-to witness for conservatives in Congress, had earlier said “I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment that is something that an inquiry has to establish.”

He added, however, “But I also believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”

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Without a deal by Saturday, many government functions, including some health care programs, will temporarily stop. 

The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel has a rundown of how a government shutdown could affect key health care programs.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is calling on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to bring the Senate’s bipartisan continuing resolution to the floor for a vote.

The request comes one day after McCarthy told his members that he will not bring the stopgap bill to the floor amid opposition from conservatives.

“We have a simple request of the Republicans in the House,” Jeffries said during his weekly press conference in the Capitol on Thursday. “When a bipartisan continuing resolution comes over from the Senate today, tomorrow, this weekend, put the bill on the floor for an up or down vote so we can end this MAGA Republican nightmare.”

“And if you don’t, you own this government shutdown,” he added.

The Senate continuing resolution cleared another procedural hurdle on Thursday, advancing in a bipartisan 76-22 vote.

— Mychael Schnell

The Senate voted 76-22 Thursday to keep a six-week government funding measure on track to pass this weekend, but it looks increasingly likely the federal government will shut down when funding runs out Saturday.  

Senators voted to proceed to the legislative vehicle for the continuing resolution — a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill — but there are still a few legislative hurdles to overcome before the stopgap spending measure can be sent to the House.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced the next vote, on ending debate on the substitute amendment, which will be the stopgap funding measure itself, is expected to happen Saturday. The 79-page substitute includes $6.15 billion for Ukraine, $6 billion in disaster relief funding and would fund the federal government until Nov. 17.  

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— Alexander Bolton

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee shot down a motion to call Rudy Giuliani as a witness before the panel.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) made the motion during the first hearing in the impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

At one point he held up a paper that said “Where is Rudy?”

Earlier in the hearing Republicans voted down a move from ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to subpoena Giuliani.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) got into a testy exchange behind closed doors Thursday, after Gaetz accused McCarthy of being behind a social media campaign targeting the Florida Republican — which the Speaker denied.

The back-and-forth at the House GOP’s conference meeting took place amid heightened tensions between the men, with Gaetz openly threatening to force a vote on ousting McCarthy as Speaker if he does not follow through with a number of demands on spending and legislation.

“I asked McCarthy direct question: Were you out there paying for people to try to create a false negative sentiment about me online?” Gaetz told The Hill of the exchange. “And his non sequitur retort was that he was giving out two and a half million dollars to other Republicans at breakfast. And I asked him how much of that money he’d gotten from FTX and Sam Bankman Fried.”

The Speaker, meanwhile, reportedly told Gaetz that he is busy doing his job and trying to run the conference and essentially said, “I’m not worried about you, Matt,” according to a House Republican.

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— Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks

ICYMI from The Hill: McCarthy-Gaetz feud hits fever pitch

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday accused Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of going “back on his word” by abandoning the funding levels he agreed to when he and President Biden struck a deal to raise the debt limit.  

“Remember, bipartisan majorities agreed to funding levels back in June. The leaders of the House, the Senate, the White House, we all shook hands on this deal but now the Speaker, and only the Speaker, is going back on his word,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

As a result, Schumer argued, “Speaker McCarthy has made a shutdown far more likely.”

— Alexander Bolton

GOP senators are meeting in Senate Minority Whip John Thune’s (R-S.D.) office as more press for border security to be addressed in the stopgap funding bill.

Heading into Thune’s office, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, didn’t say if she supports the CR in its current version when asked on Thursday morning.

“I think this CR needs to have a border security component added to it,” she told The Hill. “I’ve advocated for that for some time, and I’m continuing to advocate for that.”

Other senators, including Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), were also seen walking into the office.

Tillis told reporters Wednesday he has “no intention” voting on the Senate’s CR in its current form, adding he plans to offer amendments that “address the problem at the border.”

Asked about his expectation of a border amendment being adopted, Thune told reporters on Thursday: “I don’t know the answer to that just yet.”

“There are a lot of potential options out there.”

— Aris Folley

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), used Republicans’ own words against them and sought to subpoena Rudy Giuliani in an effort to undercut the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

In a lengthy opening statement replete with numerous props, including a countdown clock pointing to the pending government shutdown, Raskin cast the inquiry as being ignited by former President Trump while highlighting lingering doubts among a number of Republicans. 

“If Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol. they would be presenting it today. They’ve got nothing on President Joe Biden. All they can do is return to the thoroughly demolished lie that Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump launched five years ago. The Burisma conspiracy theory, a fairytale so preposterous that one of the main authors Lev Parans has now disowned and repudiated it,” Raskin said, nodding to a former associate of Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and lawyer to Trump.

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— Rebecca Beitsch

House Oversight Republicans swiftly blocked a motion by Democrats following a move by ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to subpoena Rudy Giuliani and “his right-hand man” Lev Parnas.

Raskin argued Guiliani and Parnas should explain their role in circulating allegations against President Biden, calling the two “the origins of the lie on which this sham impeachment is based and who worked to spread it.”

It was Giuliani that sought to raise allegations that Biden tried to force out a Ukrainian prosecutor to benefit his son – despite backing from the international community and the State Department that the prosecutor should be removed due to a failure to address corruption.

Raskin also criticized the GOP witnesses brought in for the first impeachment hearing, noting that none have any insight into wrongdoing

“Not one of them is an eyewitness to a presidential crime of any kind. And not one of them is in direct fact witness about any of the events related to Ukraine or Burisma,” he said.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Watch live: House Oversight Committee holds first hearing on Biden impeachment inquiry

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has a shutdown clock in front of him on the dais at the panel’s first hearing in the impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

The digital clock is counting down to the “Republican Shutdown.”

The hearing is happening as Congress is racing to avert a government shutdown this weekend.

Several House Republicans coming out of a GOP conference meeting said a vote on a GOP-crafted short-term stopgap funding bill is still expected tomorrow.

The bill’s text hasn’t been released yet, and a number of conservatives have lined up against it.

Republicans hope to convince the public and even some of their colleagues that an impeachment inquiry into President Biden holds merit at their first hearing Thursday.  

The GOP’s sprawling investigation seeks to establish that Hunter Biden engaged in unethical business practices by leveraging his family name and then connect any wrongdoing back to the president. 

Republican investigators with the House Oversight Committee have yet to connect that dot, nor have they found a smoking gun to back their most controversial claim — that Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch. Biden has furiously denied that allegation.  

By House Oversight Chairman James Comer’s (R-Ky.) admission, the hearing is “not expected to cover new ground.” 

Instead, the panel is set to dig into Hunter Biden’s finances and tax payments as they take testimony from two tax experts — issues already investigated by a prosecutor held over from the Trump administration who was recently elevated to a special counsel. 

The hearing starts at 10 a.m.

READ MORE HERE.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is running short on viable options to get House Republicans some wins while averting a shutdown.

Outside the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate — with the help of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — has aimed to take the reins on a continuing resolution (CR), advancing a stopgap that Republicans say is dead on arrival in the House.

Inside the House, McCarthy faces roadblocks from multiple corners of his conference that will likely prevent the slim House majority from executing its own short-term funding bill. GOP leadership wants to pass its own stopgap with border measures in order to put themselves in a position to extract concessions from the Senate and White House.

McCarthy has said he would like to meet with President Biden on attaching border policy measures to a short-term funding extension. But with just three days until a government shutdown, the Speaker has not yet worked in earnest with Democrats on a deal to keep the government open.

“Unless something dramatic happens today or tomorrow, there will likely be a couple-of-day or longer shutdown — very, very unfortunately, because it’s our responsibility to exercise and exhaust all options,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said.

READ MORE HERE.

— Emily Brooks