The U.S. government is on track to begin at least a short-term partial shutdown early Saturday, with a scheduled Senate vote on a funding deal to keep federal agencies open.
According to MS Now, Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) entered Senate Majority Leader John Thune (RS.D.)’s office late Thursday and told reporters, “This is a bad deal.”
Mr. Graham confirmed a so-called hold on the funding package, effectively preventing its swift consideration in the Senate.
Even if the Senate votes on the deal on Friday, the House is not scheduled to return to Washington until Monday, making at least a short shutdown all but certain. Both chambers must vote to approve the spending bill before the package is signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Without a funding agreement, a partial shutdown of federal government operations would begin at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday.
In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, President Trump encouraged lawmakers to support a deal that would provide most of the federal funding through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Senate leaders had planned to vote on the deal Thursday night, but it was defeated.
The agreement would cut funding to the Department of Homeland Security and pass five other bills to direct funding to the agency.
DHS, which has come under sharp criticism from Democrats over aggressive immigration enforcement in Minnesota, would be temporarily funded through the agreed-upon stopgap measure, with long-term funding to be reconsidered later.
A Republican Senate aide told MS Now that Graham’s hold on the deal stems from a House-passed provision that removed legislative language that would have allowed senators to sue for up to $500,000 if their phone records were obtained during the so-called Arctic Frost investigation by then-special counsel Jack Smith.
