Congress has two weeks to strike a funding deal and avoid a government shutdown. But tensions are high amid a debate on political violence, complicating their path.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Two weeks to go for the GOP-led Congress to strike a funding deal and avoid a government shutdown. Now, one new wrinkle in that is finding money to increase security for Washington’s political leaders. However, with a broader debate happening over political violence, the path to a bipartisan spending agreement is anything but certain. NPR’s congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales is following all of this. So, Claudia, September 30 – that’s when the government runs out of money. Both parties seem pretty far apart. What options are on the table?
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Good morning, A. Well, a few are on the table. President Trump and this Republican-led Congress have tightly held the reins on money for the government this year. They passed a massive partisan spending and tax plan. They clawed back billions in funding, burning Democrats along the way. For example, earlier this year, Senate Democrats led by minority leader Chuck Schumer helped Republicans push through a stopgap funding bill, but now the clock on that is about to run out. Schumer and other Democrats faced a lot of blowback, and they say they’re not going to help Republicans again without getting something in return. Now, they want to see an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies that will expire in December. And then there’s also talk of a short-term stopgap measure to buy both sides time to negotiate a full bipartisan spending deal, but it’s unclear they’re even going to get there.
MARTÍNEZ: So it really sounds like a government shutdown is almost certain. I mean, it doesn’t sound very good.
GRISALES: Maybe. Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GRISALES: No, it doesn’t look very good either when we’re there. And then there’s splits within the parties we could see. For example, fiscal conservatives are once again threatening to vote no, but they’ve been known to fold. And then, as always, President Trump remains a wild card here. He could upend the whole process. On Monday, he said he wanted to see a short-term funding extension, and Democrats are already saying no to doing that. So we should note Congress is scheduled to be out next week, so there’s not a lot of time left to get this done.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so let’s shift gears on that and talk about the president’s nominations on Capitol Hill. So late last week, Senate Republicans triggered the nuclear option. Tell us more about the nuclear option.
GRISALES: Yes, and this was just related to Trump’s nominees. Democrats had held up dozens of confirmations for weeks, so Senate leaders finally pulled the trigger on what’s known as the nuclear option to bypass the filibuster requiring 60 votes to get this process done that allows a simple majority of Republicans to move certain nominees forward as a bloc, rather doing – than doing all these individual votes. And this applies to lower-level, non-cabinet-level executive branch nominees. So clearly, it marks an expansion of Senate Republicans’ power, and Democrats are crying foul. But we haven’t seen it go beyond this at this stage.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, one more thing, Claudia – a big concern with lawmakers are new security measures, especially after what happened with Charlie Kirk last week and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. How are they going to sort through all of that?
GRISALES: Right. That’s going to be a really, really difficult issue for them to deal with because when you’re there, the mood of lawmakers, the accusations, back-and-forth, the blame game – it’s really tense right now. That said, lawmakers have said they need new funding to support these heightened security measures, and that’s getting folded into the talks over government spending. And the White House, so far, has asked for nearly $60 million to fund new security measures for the judicial and executive branches, so this would include the justices for the Supreme Court. However, now leaders are looking at doing the same for members of Congress. A reminder – both parties are facing more questions than answers right now.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, that’s NPR’s Claudia Grisales. Thanks a lot.
GRISALES: Thank you.
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