Speaker Johnson unveils bill to fund the government through September 30

House Speaker Mike Johnson formally unveiled plans on Saturday for a government funding stopgap through September 30 — a measure intended to stave off a potential March 14 shutdown and buy time for President Donald Trump and GOP leaders to steer key pieces of his agenda through Congress this summer.

House Speaker Mike Johnson formally unveiled plans on Saturday for a government funding stopgap through September 30 — a measure intended to stave off a potential March 14 shutdown and buy time for President Donald Trump and GOP leaders to steer key pieces of his agenda through Congress this summer. The president himself has been highly supportive of the measure, even though it mostly freezes funding levels leftover from the Biden administration. And House GOP leaders believe that his backing will help them win robust support among House Republicans on the floor next week, even as many ultraconservatives typically loathe such stopgap measures. Johnson hopes to hold the vote Tuesday on the 99-page bill, according to people familiar with the plans. “It is quite literally as clean a CR as you can draft,” a House GOP leadership aide said Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has strongly opposed the measure — preferring a long-term negotiated deal — and said Johnson and his GOP will need to pass it on their own. But a small number of House Democrats have privately discussed in recent days whether they should support the bill. “If Republicans decide to take this approach, as Speaker Johnson indicated, it’s his expectation that Republicans are going it alone,” Jeffries told reporters Friday, ahead of the bill release. Asked afterward if he believed Johnson could pull off the government funding vote next week, Jeffries was blunt: “No.”