The most high-wire month on the legislative calendar is off to a rough start for Republicans.
Government funding will run out in 28 days. And the Republican trifecta that controls Washington is pursuing three different strategies at the moment.
Senate Republicans are doubling down on bipartisan funding bills that call for tens of billions of dollars more in spending than House Republicans — or the White House — have proposed.
House Republicans seem to be gravitating toward a stopgap funding resolution that would keep the federal government funded through mid-November, giving Hill leaders and the White House more time to find a FY2026 spending deal – if possible.
But the White House isn’t interested in a short-term funding patch.
Instead, administration officials want to fund federal agencies until the first quarter of 2026, according to administration sources involved in the talks. This would avoid repeated shutdown deadline dramas. Yet it also opens the door to a year-long continuing resolution — something House and Senate appropriators desperately want to avoid.
All this comes as President Donald Trump infuriated Democrats and some top Senate Republicans by issuing a “pocket rescission” of nearly $5 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid.
We wrote Tuesday morning that Democrats need to find a coherent strategy and pursue it as a unified entity. But it’s clear Republicans need to get on the same page as well — and quickly.
All that really matters for Republicans is that Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are aligned closer to the Sept. 30 deadline. The diverging strategies at this stage are a reflection of just how difficult it will be for all three to get on the same page — and whether they can shift the blame to Democrats if there’s a shutdown.
The Senate. Thune wants the FY2026 funding process to be as bipartisan as possible, believing he can make Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats look unreasonable if they refuse to provide the votes needed to avert a shutdown.
“If the Democrats are interested in funding the government, we’re going to give them every opportunity to do that,” Thune told us, adding that he plans to put more funding bills on the floor this month. “[We want to] pass bills in a way that reflects the priorities of the Senate.”
But the pocket rescissions controversy has left Thune in an uncomfortable spot.
The South Dakota Republican ran for his job on a promise to revive the chamber’s historically bipartisan appropriations process. Thune’s steadfast defense of the filibuster means Democratic votes are needed to fund the government.
The Senate passed a three-bill minibus before leaving for the August recess, but the pocket rescissions uproar means that keeping Democrats at the table will be a challenge.
“I think it can give Democrats a reason not to work with us on a bipartisan appropriations bill. That’s got me concerned,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), an Appropriations Committee member, said of the pocket rescissions effort. “We’re going to do whatever we can to get this thing through this year. We’re committed to it.”
Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) says the pocket rescission is flat-out illegal, adding that her chief counsel is looking into potential legal avenues to challenge the move.
Thune said he spoke with Collins and reaffirmed their commitment to a bipartisan appropriations process. But it won’t get easier.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is slated to mark up the State Department-Foreign Operations and Homeland Security funding bills next week. The former will be difficult because of the fact that the pocket rescission targets foreign aid, while the latter is typically the most contentious funding bill, given the immigration and border security elements.
The House. Johnson will meet today with House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.). Cole told us Tuesday that he was eyeing a short-term CR until sometime between Nov. 6 and Thanksgiving. That stopgap bill, according to Cole, would ride with the MilCon-VA, Agriculture and Legislative Branch spending bills.
“I would not want to go all the way to December,” Cole said. “I don’t want a long-term CR.”
However, the White House views a CR to early 2026 as the best path forward. Their thinking is that a CR into November or December would force Congress into a series of stopgap bills while lawmakers wrestle with a larger, full-year spending deal. Administration officials think that setting a deadline next year would give Congress some breathing room to clinch an agreement without a rolling set of deadlines.
Johnson has internally discussed a stopgap that would expire in November or December, but he hasn’t made a firm decision on which path he’ll pursue.
“I have heard different views on that,” Johnson told us. “What matters is how many votes I can collect for which time period. So we’ll figure that out. I need about two days to do that.”
The issue also came up during a call Johnson had last week with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. While Johnson described the call as productive, Jeffries won’t commit to supporting any funding bill unless there’s a bipartisan deal first.
