House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the House will vote again on whether to consider the bill to fund the Pentagon as House Republicans showed signs of breaking an intra-party logjam that threatens a government shutdown in 10 days.
Talking to reporters after a lengthy party conference early Wednesday night, McCarthy said the House would vote Thursday on a rule to govern debate on the $826.2 billion defense bill. A similar vote Tuesday failed as five Republicans voted with all the House Democrats to sink the rule and prevent the bill from coming to the floor.
“I think we’ve got a plan to move forward, going to [the Department of Defense] and then going to a number of other appropriation bills,” McCarthy said.
But McCarthy said broader agreement on a temporary stopgap bill, which would need to be passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by President Joe Biden by the end of Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown, had not been reached.
“We’re very close,” he said.
With hard-line anti-spending members of his party revolting on the defense bill and threatening to ensure none of the funding bills pass the House, McCarthy has been faced with trying to find some middle ground on spending that would satisfy both party conservatives and moderates or work with Democrats to keep the government open. The latter would likely expose him to an attempt to oust him from the speakership.