WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats struck a deal Thursday to avert a prolonged shutdown for most of the federal government, according to the president and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement will fund all of the government except for the Department of Homeland Security through next September. DHS will operate on a two-week stopgap bill, according to five sources familiar with the agreement, in order to buy time to negotiate changes sought by Democrats after public outrage over the DHS killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Senate vote on the funding agreement could happen as soon as Thursday night. The House, which returns to Washington on Monday, would then need to pass the legislation and send it to Trump’s desk for his signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funding will temporarily lapse for multiple agencies starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, but if the deal passes both chambers, the impact is expected to be minimal since most federal employees don\u2019t work on the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president urged lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to vote for the bipartisan deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe only thing that can slow our Country down is another long and damaging Government Shutdown,\u201d he said Thursday night on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRepublicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan \u2018YES\u2019 Vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deal reflects what senators in both parties had floated just a day earlier: a short-term funding bill for DHS, while the two parties negotiate changes to the department and ICE, which it oversees, along with bills to fund the rest of the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two sides agreed to a two-week CR that would keep DHS running through Feb. 13, just before both chambers depart for a weeklong recess, the sources told NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf Republicans don\u2019t do s— for two weeks, DHS shuts down and there\u2019s little incentive for us to reopen without the guardrails on ICE,\u201d said one Democratic aide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement came together just hours after the Senate rejected a sweeping $1.2 trillion funding package that the House passed last week; that legislation bundled all six funding bills together, including funding for DHS. The Senate vote was 45-55, with eight Republicans joining all Democrats in voting no \u2014 far short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The failed vote on the House package was expected, as Democrats had warned they would not support it without significant safeguards related to DHS and ICE operations. But the degree of GOP opposition to the existing package highlighted the leverage Democrats had in securing an agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a moment of truth for the United States of America. What the nation witnessed on Saturday in the streets of Minneapolis was a moral abomination,\u201d Schumer said before the deal was revealed. \u201cWhat ICE is doing, outside the law, is state-sanctioned thuggery, and it must stop. … And Congress has the authority and the moral obligation to act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thune, meanwhile, deferred to the White House to cut a deal, telling reporters: \u201cMy hope and expectation is that, yeah, as the White House and Senate Dems, they work this out, that they\u2019ll be able to produce the votes that are necessary to get it passed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said there were extensive discussions on Wednesday ahead of the deal being clinched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was with the president for about three hours yesterday in the Oval Office, and we were on the phone with Chuck Schumer and Leader Thune and Tom Homan,\u201d Johnson said at the premiere of the \u201cMelania\u201d documentary at the Kennedy Center. \u201cThere was a lot of discussion there. I thought it was productive. And I certainly hope that the shutdown could be avoided. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funding for many critical agencies \u2014 including the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Education and Homeland Security \u2014 runs out at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A shutdown of those agencies is expected to occur regardless of the bipartisan deal, since anything the Senate passes will also need to be passed by the House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier Thursday, during his first Cabinet meeting of the new year, Trump said “we\u2019ll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don\u2019t want to shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n