McCarthy pushes for Biden meeting with shutdown 5 days away

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reached a new point in spending negotiations, with only five days until a shutdown deadline: pushing for a meeting with President Joe Biden.

While McCarthy and his allies are increasingly projecting confidence they’ll be able to notch at least one minor spending win this week, it won’t do anything to avert a shutdown. To prevent that from happening, the speaker would almost certainly need to work with Democrats, given conservative opposition. Asked about that possibility Tuesday afternoon, McCarthy implied it’d be easier to cut a deal directly with Biden.

“I think it’d be very important to have a meeting with the president,” McCarthy said, when questioned if he was requesting a sit down with the president. But the California Republican made clear he would have steep demands, such as passing the GOP’s border security bill: “The president could keep government open by doing something on the border.”

The new push to meet directly with Biden comes just hours before Republicans will vote on advancing four funding bills, covering the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Agriculture. The traditionally routine step has turned into a major headache for leadership after GOP hardliners blocked the defense bill last week, with the holdouts arguing McCarthy should’ve prioritized passing the 11 remaining funding bills over the August recess.

But GOP leadership believes they’ve flipped enough votes to begin debate on the bills — though it remains unclear whether any of them will actually pass the fractured conference, given hundreds of pending amendment votes. And even if they do, none of McCarthy’s current maneuvering would avoid a shutdown set to start at midnight on Saturday.

Five hardliners previously voted against bringing up the defense bill last week: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Matt Rosendale (Mont.), causing a logjam just over a week before the government funding deadline.

One of those “no” votes definitely hasn’t flipped, with Greene declaring herself a “hard no” over the weekend because one bill includes Ukraine-related funding. But McCarthy has flipped at least two members: Bishop told POLITICO on Tuesday that he will vote to move forward on the bills. And Crane is expected to vote yes as well, according to a Republican with direct knowledge of the matter.

But GOP leaders’ math problems are compounded by their attendance issues. Democrats, who are united in opposing the rule vote, are rushing to shore up their numbers while Republicans are missing several members due to health and family issues. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) is expected to return Wednesday at the latest after getting injured on his farm, while Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is undergoing chemotherapy, is set to be back in the Capitol for votes Tuesday night, his office confirmed. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) will not be back for votes Tuesday, according to her office.

With Scalise back and Crane and Bishop now supporting the rule, McCarthy appears to have enough votes to forge ahead. But the outcome still isn’t certain, given some lawmakers could still flip and not everyone is publicly indicating how they plan to vote.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a conservative who has been involved in the negotiations, predicted that they would overcome the first hurdle on Tuesday night. But he left some room for doubt, saying while Greene was the only known “no” vote, there were “rumors” about others.

“I know about Marjorie. I don’t know about any other nos,” Donalds said.

Even though the bills have no chance of passing the Senate or preventing a shutdown, Republicans believe passing their funding measures gives them a stronger hand in negotiating with Biden and congressional Democrats.

Still, allowing those four bills to come up for debate provides zero certainty that the House GOP can pass any of them. Some Republicans, like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), have said they will support the procedural step but plan to vote against certain bills.

Amendment votes will only further complicate matters: GOP leaders have promised to try to make the process to request bill changes as open as possible. That means some amendments could come to the floor that, if approved, risk dooming the final measure.

The agriculture funding bill seems to be in particular trouble: roughly 20 Republicans are still opposed to it, according to three House GOP lawmakers who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. They added it’s very possible their agriculture spending bill never gets a vote, unless GOP leaders bless a move to modify the rule to fix lingering abortion and agriculture funding issues.

“The bill was dead anyway,” said one of the Republicans.

About a dozen rural Republicans are still livid about drastic funding cuts to key agriculture programs in the latest version of the bill. Another eight to 10 moderates still oppose the legislation over a controversial GOP abortion policy measure. It’s very possible GOP leaders swap out the agriculture bill for another that funds energy and water programs, and possibly also the Interior Department spending bill, later this week.

When it comes to actually averting the shutdown, McCarthy is expected to bring a bill to the floor later this week that would pair a weeks-long spending patch with a sweeping Republican border bill and a commission to study the national debt. He doesn’t currently have the votes to pass that proposal, though he’s still trying to put political pressure on conservative hardliners to flip, arguing they’re siding with Biden on the border.

“It’d be concerning to me that there would be people in the Republican Party that would take the position of President Biden against what the rest of the Americans want,” McCarthy said.

Sarah Ferris and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

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