Speaker Johnson ‘Optimistic’ About Avoiding Government Shutdown After White House Talks

White House

WASHINGTON (TND) — Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., expressed confidence in Congress’ ability to avoid a potential, partial government shutdown Friday as he left talks at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

We are very optimistic,” Johnson told a group of reporters outside the White House. “We believe we can get to an agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., arrives for a closed-door GOP caucus meeting, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Johnson, as well as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and the Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., were invited to the White House by the president to discuss the impending partial shutdown as well as the the continued bipartisan push for further funding for Ukraine (alongside Israel and Taiwan).

Ahead of the meeting, a White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet publicly confirmed, said the president will discuss the “urgency” of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September.

The federal government could enter a partial shutdown Friday, under a plan Johnson proposed by Johnson in November to split the government funding fight into two tiers, or groupings of appropriations spending. At the time, the new Speaker argued that this innovative approach would allow House Republicans to push for deeper spending cuts — coming after Pres. Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made agreements on spending levels for 2024 and 2025 last year.

Funding runs out Friday for four such appropriations groups: Agriculture, Rural Development, and the Food and Drug Administration; Energy and Water Development; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. Subsequently, money for the other eight realms of federal operations is scheduled to expire the following Friday, March 8.

Despite opposition to the plan from his right-flank — which required Johnson to get Democratic help to pass the plan, 336-95 — he argued it was a duty to keep the government open for the benefit of Americans.

Making sure that government stays in operation is a matter of conscience for all of us. We owe that to the American people,” he said at a news conference from the Capitol in November.

In closed-door conference meetings that month, Johnson tried to assuage the concerns of fiscal hardliners like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas — who said he thought the plan was “a very big mistake” — saying that the House Republicans were not “surrendering” in their quest for spending cuts “but you have to choose fights you can win.”

The White Meeting was praised by the Democratic congressional leadership as well, with Schumer calling the talks “productive.”

The Speaker said unequivocally that he wants to avoid a government shutdown,” he elaborated. “We’re making good progress and hopeful we can get this done quickly.

The Senate Majority Leader also characterized the remaining details to be ironed out as “little back and forths on different issues that different people want” but also said he did not think those tit-for-tat talks were “insurmountable.”

Both Schumer and Jeffries both described the talks around Ukraine funding as “intense.”

“The meeting on Ukraine was one of the most intense meetings I’ve ever encountered in many meetings in the Oval Office,” Schumer told reporters. “And the intensity in that room was surprising to me. But because of the passion of the president, the vice president, Leader Jeffries, Leader McConnell and myself, it was.”

While Johnson and the current House Republican leadership have opposed further Ukraine funding — at least not without tying it to more stringent border security policy than what was proposed earlier this month — Democrats and hawkish Republicans in both chambers, including McConnell in the Senate, have thrown their support behind supporting the Eastern European nation’s struggle to resist Russia’s invasion.

The Speaker expressed to reporters that House Republicans were “actively pursuing all the various option” when it comes to that supplemental national security funding while emphasizing the need for border security, both with the group of fellow leaders and in a one-on-one with the president.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report