Trump-backed funding bill clears the Senate, putting pressure on House to quickly end shutdown
By Sarah Ferris, Morgan Rimmer, CNN
(CNN) — The Senate has put Congress on path to stave off another prolonged government shutdown, approving a major spending deal struck with the White House that only temporarily funds the Department of Homeland Security to allow for long-term negotiations on federal immigration enforcement.
It’s all but certain that Washington will enter a partial government shutdown at midnight. But Republican and Democratic leaders believe the final measure will reach President Donald Trump’s desk early enough next week to avoid any substantial pain for federal workers. The Senate voted to pass the measure just hours before the funding deadline Friday, but the House is not expected to return to Washington until Monday to give it final approval.
House passage, however, is not yet guaranteed: Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team must navigate a slim GOP margin with some hardliner Republicans rebelling against the two-week funding stopgap for DHS, which Senate Democrats had demanded.
The Republican leader and his team will likely need help from Democrats to pass the bill, which provides funding for the rest of the departments in the package — with priorities ranging from the Pentagon to air traffic control to federal health research — through the end of September.
Trump and GOP leaders quickly agreed to Democrats’ demand to punt on DHS funding for now, as the party faces an intense public backlash from the two killings of US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis this month. The White House has been adamant that Republicans should seek to avoid a shutdown after Democrats showed firm resolve last fall, refusing to reopen the government for 43 days over expiring enhanced Obamacare tax credits for millions of Americans.
Democrats, meanwhile, agreed to a two-week funding punt, rather than shutting down DHS altogether, as they seek real negotiations with Republicans on reforms at a time when even GOP senators are calling for changes.
The spending package — which funds three-quarters of government agencies — would slightly reduce Congress’ spending overall, but mostly rejects Trump’s steepest proposed budget cuts.
Democrats, and some Republicans, fought to protect federal dollars for programs like NIH and Pell Grants, though the measure still slashes funding for international aid programs, following the White House’s decision to shutter USAID last year. It also funds Trump priorities like a military pay raise and new investments in air safety and FAA hiring.
In a win for Democrats, the funding bills also include some accountability measures — dubbed “guardrails “ by the party — that effectively force the White House to follow Congress’ spending instructions. They hope this would end the Trump administration’s practice of moving money between departments without Capitol Hill’s approval. (This time, spending leaders included a detailed funding breakdown in the bill itself — rather than the nonbinding language that is typically sent to the White House.)
GOP leaders struggled for much of Thursday and Friday to win full support from their own conference for the measure.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in particular, had issues with the DHS portion, and tried to force his own party leadership to keep language that would allow senators, such as himself, to sue the Department of Justice for large sums of money because their phone records were seized under the Biden administration without their knowledge. The House in the package voided the controversial law after senators had forced into the bill that ended November’s historic shutdown.
“You jammed me, Speaker Johnson. I won’t forget this,” Graham said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor on Friday.
This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.
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CNN’s Ted Barrett and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.
