Senate Gives House DHS Bill, Speaker Johnson and Republicans Voted it Down

Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol on Friday. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times

By Carl HulseMegan Mineiro and Robert Jimison

Reporting from the Capitol

New York Times

We knew what was going to happen because Trump already told them {Congress} through TV not to vote for the senate bill. So The House did what they have done for the past year, put their tails between their legs and hide behind Trump. Now the Senate is on Eastern Vacation. But wait, it gets better. Trump said he would take the money that NATO has put aside to buy arms for Ukraine and pay TSa with those funds that don't belong to Trump. Not legal, Not anything. He is just holding the money so NATO can buy Ukraine sustainability arms. Iran Again In juried very badly. soldiers in Saudi Arabia with information everyone suspects is from Russia. Reporters don't ask and Trump does not talks. Those rides for the WH reporter on AF-1 most be better than sex!

Adam

Republicans revolted over a Senate measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security and passed a rival bill, dimming the chances of a quick end to the crisis crippling airports.

The House passed that measure on a 213 to 203 vote late Friday night, before leaving Washington for a scheduled two-week break.

The vote left funding for the Department of Homeland Security up in the air, with competing bills pending in each chamber — both controlled by Republicans — and neither apparently willing to approve the other’s proposal.

House Democrats had been ready to join with Republicans and back the Senate-passed measure, clearing it for Mr. Trump to sign it into law and end the shutdown. But the House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democrats have been rejecting similar proposals for more than a month. It was unclear late on Friday whether senators, who have now scattered to their states for the two-week recess, would return to Washington and vote again.

Mr. Thune did not weigh in on the backlash to the agreement he negotiated, and Mr. Johnson tried to shift the blame to Senate Democrats. But Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the Rules Committee, said the House Republican opposition left no question which party was responsible for the lapse in agency funding. 

“If you woke up this morning not knowing who to blame for this shutdown, you will go to bed tonight with no doubt on who to blame,” Mr. McGovern said. “It’s House Republicans and Speaker Johnson.”

Mr. Trump, who had waffled all week about whether he would support a deal to end the shutdown, also removed any doubt about where he stood, telling Fox News in an interview that the Senate-passed bill “wasn’t appropriate.” He urged Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, a move he has long demanded, and force through a funding measure over Democratic opposition.

Senate Democrats have insisted for weeks that they would not support new funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless the Trump administration agreed to significant restrictions on ICE tactics and officer conduct after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

Despite Mr. Trump’s initial commitment to negotiate over such limits, the White House and Republicans in Congress resisted major changes such as a ban on officers wearing masks and new warrant requirements. The prolonged stalemate has in recent days led to long lines and chaos at some airport screening points on the eve of spring break as Transportation Security Administration officers went unpaid and began calling out in significant numbers.

After last-ditch talks again proved fruitless on Thursday, Mr. Trump announced he would go around Congress to pay T.S.A. workers, which administration officials said would be possible using a pot of agency money that was approved last year as part of the tax cut and domestic policy law. Hours later, senators announced bipartisan legislation that would fund most of the agency, excepting immigration enforcement operations, through Sept. 30. That measure was approved by unanimous agreement without a recorded vote before dawn on Friday and sent to the House.