Congress is barreling toward a shutdown

IN THIS EDITION

How we’re thinking about this massive week

Manchin’s revenge tour — against Dems

Miran set for confirmation ahead of crucial Fed meetings

What we’re watching

Jeffries fundraises in California for redistricting

THE TOP

How we’re thinking about this massive week

Happy Monday morning.

The government-funding deadline isn’t for another 15 days. But this week will go a long way toward revealing the massive challenges that Congress and the White House face in avoiding a shutdown come Oct. 1.

We’re officially in the danger zone. A shutdown appears more likely than not at this point. That’s not to say it’s guaranteed. Shutdowns are terrible politics and policy. But Republicans and Democrats are heading in diametrically different directions right now, with each side comfortably betting on their own strategy. And that could lead to a shutdown unless something changes.

The House Republican leadership plans to put a bill on the floor this week to keep the federal government open through Nov. 20, a strategy aimed at giving appropriators another seven weeks to hash out a broader spending deal for the FY2026 bills.

Republicans are saying the CR will be “clean” — free of partisan policy riders.

But as we’ve reported, the GOP proposal doesn’t include any of the Democrats’ demands. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said they can’t vote for any CR unless it includes health care-related provisions.

It’s not clear if Democrats are demanding that Republicans renew enhanced premium subsidies for Obamacare or restore OBBB Medicaid cuts. Rather, Schumer and Jeffries have simply called on Republicans to negotiate.

And the two top Democrats insist that the other big issues in the funding talks — such as member security — must be addressed at the leadership level, not by appropriators.

“If Republicans follow Donald Trump’s orders to not even bother dealing with Democrats, they will be single handedly putting our country on the path towards a shutdown,” a Schumer spokesperson said.

Either way, Republicans haven’t included any health care language in their CR proposal. Senate Majority Leader John Thune explicitly told us on Fly Out Day that there’s no way he would include such policies in a seven-week stopgap bill.

So Hill Republicans and the White House seem to be going for a re-run of their March strategy: Jam a funding bill through the House using only GOP votes and then force Senate Democrats to decide whether to shut down the government. Schumer blinked, and for this, was hammered by the left. This time around, working hand-in-glove with Jeffries, Schumer seems a lot less likely to acquiesce.

There are many dynamics to run through here.

The House. The immediate challenge for Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP leadership team is to release the CR text. Republican leaders have traditionally given the rank-and-file 72 hours to review bills before putting them up for a vote. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but Johnson tries to stick to it.

There’s a bit of back and forth over security for members of Congress. The White House requested $58 million in additional funding for executive branch and judicial security. In doing so, the Trump administration said it would support more funding to protect members of Congress. That hasn’t been finalized yet.

The big question is whether House GOP leaders can get 218 votes for their CR. Democrats aren’t expected to give the GOP any help in the House. With full attendance, Johnson can lose just two votes. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) will almost certainly be opposed, so that leaves Johnson just one vote to spare.

The argument that Johnson will make to rank-and-file Republicans is that it will weaken their party’s hand in the shutdown showdown if they can’t get a bill out of the House with GOP votes only.

This is true, but the argument has gotten a bit tired to the GOP rank and file. The biggest danger for Johnson is conservatives, who will undoubtedly say that the Senate will end up jamming the House on a long-term funding bill filled with Democratic priorities. Indeed, the Senate process has been bipartisan, and Thune has stood by it.

We don’t think Jeffries will have a hard time holding his caucus together against the CR. But it’s worth watching Democrats like Reps. Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) and Henry Cuellar (Texas).

The Senate. Presuming the House passes the CR early enough, Thune could tee up the bill by the end of the week.

The problem for Thune is that the Senate will need a few days to process a funding bill without consent. That could mean scrapping some of next week’s planned recess for Rosh Hashanah. We’re told that bringing senators back to Washington at the end of next week is on the table.

Once Thune files cloture, there’s an intervening day followed by the first procedural vote, which is set at a 60-vote threshold.

Yet we don’t need to wait that long to know what Senate Democrats’ CR play is. Senate Democrats are going to filibuster, stopping Republicans from passing the CR. The question is what happens next.

Both sides seem pretty comfortable with their positions: Republicans say Democrats are being unreasonable with their demands. Democrats say Republicans won’t negotiate and thus own the shutdown. The party that instigates a shutdown — almost always Republicans — usually loses these political fights. In this case, Democrats are rejecting what’s being described as a clean CR.

And remember: When justifying his decision to vote for the GOP funding bill in March, Schumer argued that a shutdown would be the worst outcome. Schumer said it would embolden Trump to thumb his nose at Congress even further, and that the president would use a shutdown to inflict maximum pain. We agree that Trump will make this shutdown as painful as possible.

Member security. House Democrats held a call Sunday night with U.S. Capitol Police Chief Michael Sullivan to discuss the security situation in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Roughly 150 members, as well as spouses and members’ children, were on the call. There was discussion of extending the $5,000 per month security allowance, which expires at the end of this month, among other options.

— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio, John Bresnahan and Ally Mutnick

THE SENATE

Manchin’s revenge tour — against Dems

Former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) is out with a new book on Tuesday titled “Dead Center.” Manchin is doing a media blitz starting this morning and lasting throughout the week. This includes appearances on CBS, “The View,” Fox News, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN, plus lots and lots of podcasts.

We got an advance copy of Manchin’s book. In it, Manchin — a longtime Democrat who very publicly broke with his party before retiring last year — has a clear message he wants to get out: I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.

The 78-year-old Manchin, who briefly flirted with a presidential run last year, repeatedly bashes former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Manchin even declared that he wanted Republicans to win the Senate majority in 2024 due to their support for maintaining the filibuster, saying it was “the only hope for preserving the Senate as an institution.”

Manchin was especially biting toward Schumer over the Democratic leader’s push to eliminate the filibuster in 2022. Manchin and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) voted no despite enormous pressure from Biden and Schumer:

Manchin does slam President Donald Trump, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans, but his most biting criticisms — by far — are saved for his former party’s leaders:

Manchin was a perennial thorn in the side of Democratic leaders throughout his 14 years in the Senate. He stifled the party’s agenda on multiple fronts, especially during the Biden administration when Democrats had a 50-50 Senate majority.

The former pol has some choice words for Biden, including that the former president had “a very bad temper.” Manchin recalled that he once called Biden “reckless” to his face over the American Rescue Plan negotiations, telling Biden that he was “sending a fucking check to everyone.”

But Manchin also expressed some regret over key issues, including his initial opposition to Obamacare when he was serving as governor of West Virginia.

Manchin slams “woke” Dems. Manchin spends a considerable amount of time criticizing the Democratic Party for its ideological shift during the last 10 to 15 years. The party was “once a big tent that welcomed diverse perspectives” but “has increasingly shifted toward ideological purity tests,” he writes.

“When the party pushes hard on woke ideology, DEI mandates, and other social agendas, it creates unnecessary divisions, alienates everyday citizens, and moves us further away from the commonsense middle ground where most Americans actually live their lives,” Manchin said.

At one point, Manchin suggests he should have switched parties when Trump was elected in 2016. Manchin went on to say that his home state of West Virginia turned against Democrats due in part to the demonization of the coal industry, adding that Democrats lost their way not just on policy but “in spirit, culture, and trust.”

“What I failed to recognize at the time is that there were enough reasons to change my political affiliation to Republican right then and there,” Manchin wrote.

Here’s more:

— John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio

THE SENATE

Miran set for confirmation ahead of crucial Fed meetings

The Senate is on track to confirm Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve Board later tonight, allowing him to be sworn in just in time for the Fed’s two-day meetings on interest rates.

That means Miran, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will have an immediate say in the Fed’s decision-making at a crucial time. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has suggested that interest rates are likely to be cut as weakness in the U.S. labor market looms.

Miran’s vote wouldn’t sway the decision to reduce rates either way, but he’s likely to advocate for a larger cut by the central bank.

We’ll be watching these meetings closely, and we’re sure President Donald Trump will have thoughts, too.

The Senate will hold a cloture vote on Miran’s nomination during the 5:30 p.m. vote series. Two hours after that vote, senators will vote on Miran’s confirmation.

New era for noms. It’s a big week for the Senate as Republicans are slated to confirm a bloc of 48 sub-Cabinet nominees on Thursday, the first “en bloc” confirmation under the chamber’s new rules.

And they’ll tee up the next bloc at the end of the week, as Republicans look to hit the ground running with the new rules.

Last week, GOP senators invoked the so-called “nuclear option” to allow the Senate to confirm an unlimited number of sub-Cabinet executive branch nominees in a single batch.

The move came in response to Senate Democrats’ unprecedented campaign to slow-walk Trump’s nominees, though the chamber’s confirmation process started deteriorating long before this year.

The first batch is centered on nominees who came out of committee with bipartisan support. They represent one-third of the current backlog of Trump nominations awaiting floor time on the Senate’s executive calendar.

Elsewhere on the nominations front, Senate GOP leaders sent 23 nominations back to committee last week, the vast majority of which are from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

This was done to head off potential Democratic objections to the use of proxy votes when the nominations were approved in committee. Nearly every Senate committee authorizes the use of proxy voting and there usually aren’t objections on the Senate floor. But this is another example of Senate Democrats playing hardball and forcing slowdowns.

The Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to re-vote those nominations on Wednesday. The group included Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

It’s looking unlikely that Waltz will be confirmed in time for the UN General Assembly, which begins in New York next week.

— Andrew Desiderio and Laura Weiss

📆

What we’re watching

Monday. The House Rules Committee will meet to prepare several bills for floor consideration.

Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee will have FBI Director Kash Patel for an oversight hearing. We expect that the killing of Charlie Kirk will be on the agenda.

Wednesday. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will have a business meeting to re-vote on the nominees that were sent back to the panel.

The Senate HELP Committee will have a hearing with Susan Monarez, the ousted director of the CDC.

The House Judiciary Committee will have Patel to testify. The House Financial Services Committee will have a hearing on reauthorizing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002.

Thursday. The House Oversight Committee will have D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

– Jake Sherman

THE CAMPAIGN

Jeffries fundraises in California for redistricting

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spent the weekend in California, raising millions for California Proposition 50, Democrats’ redistricting ballot initiative.

This is Jeffries’ second trip to California to help bankroll his party’s redistricting efforts. Jeffries was in San Francisco and Los Angeles and also raised money for the DCCC. On Friday, he was in Washington State at a healthcare-focused event with DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene.

The House Democratic leader will join a live stream Tuesday for “F*ck Around Find Out 50,” a virtual event to support California redistricting. Jeffries has raised more than $100 million in support of House Democrats since January, per Jeffries’ team.

First in Punchbowl News: Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey is endorsing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the Minnesota Senate primary. Flanagan also has the backing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in her primary against Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.).

News: The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC held its first-ever leadership retreat in Annapolis, Md., to plot midterm campaign strategy. Speakers included New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The gathering had more than 170 attendees, per a person familiar with the planning.

Ad news: Megafire Action, an anti-wildfire organization, is launching a $250,000 digital ad campaign calling on the Senate to pass the Fix Our Forests Act.

Endorsement news: Equality PAC is endorsing a slate of three candidates in contested Democratic primaries: James Osyf in Virginia’s 2nd District, Kevin Morrison in Illinois’ 8th District and Jolanda Jones in Texas’ 18th District.

– Ally Mutnick, Max Cohen and Jake Sherman

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