Tim Kaine privately laid out weeks ago what he needed in return for his vote to end the government shutdown: a “moratorium on mischief.”

That’s what the Virginia Democrat told Senate Majority Leader John Thune that any deal had to include — undoing the firings President Donald Trump and budget director Russ Vought had carried out since the start of the shutdown, as well as protections against future firings of federal workers, who make up a significant portion of Kaine’s constituency.

It was a demand that Kaine wasn’t sure the White House and Trump would agree to fully meet until the final hours before the nail-biter vote Sunday that cemented a bipartisan breakthrough.

“There was a lot of resistance but they needed my vote,” Kaine said about the GOP reaction to his demands, adding that negotiators “reached a meeting of the minds” at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday.

About five hours later, the Senate voted to move forward with legislation ensuring any federal workers laid off during the shutdown are rehired and blocking future reductions in force, or RIFs, through at least the end of a new Jan. 30 stopgap spending bill.

Most of the attention to the six weeks of shutdown negotiation centered on Democrats’ demands surrounding health care, particularly the extension of key expiring health insurance subsidies. But the RIF language was the final piece that helped clinch the deal, according to interviews with six people involved in the bipartisan negotiations.

With only eight members of the Democratic caucus voting to advance the bill — the bare minimum for it to move forward — satisfying Kaine was critical to ending the conflict largely on the GOP’s terms while also giving Democrats, who have long worried about Trump taking a sledgehammer to the federal government, something to hold up as a consolation prize.

Kaine was, by his own admission, a latecomer to the bipartisan talks, only joining late last week. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) began talking with Republicans the first night of the shutdown, by Shaheen’s account. The core group of negotiators included Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.), among others.

Shaheen, asked about the RIF language, said that it was “something the White House put on the table weeks ago as something they were willing to take a look at.” Britt also said in an interview the idea was in the mix as she, Collins, Shaheen and others discussed possible paths to reopen the government.

But while senators spent weeks quietly circling around the same rough framework, they weren’t able to secure a breakthrough.

Things began to shift late last week, as Democrats’ elation over their big Election Day wins began to wear off and the reality of a record-setting shutdown — including unpaid federal workers, worsening air travel delays and missing food aid — began to set in.

Kaine gave a proposal Friday to Thune’s team and Collins, he recounted in an interview Monday. That sparked around-the-clock negotiations over the RIF language over the weekend, including direct talks starting Sunday morning between Kaine and Britt, an appropriator and key emissary between the various negotiators and the White House.

“I think I got off the phone at 12:30 a.m. [Sunday], I think Susan Collins was up for an hour past that and then at 5 a.m. I started getting text messages about this,” Britt said. “Tim Kaine and I talked a number of times both on the phone and in person.”

While senators were hammering out the RIF language, Collins and other appropriators were working to lock down another piece of the shutdown puzzle: a three-bill funding package that included money for veterans programs, food aid and other agencies, as well as Congress itself. Agreeing to the three bills, Democrats and Republicans believe, was key to helping rebuild enough trust to notch a broader deal to end the shutdown.

Senators and staff “worked night and day, literally,” Collins said Monday night after the bill passed. “It shows the Senate can work, we can produce the results that are needed.”

At the same time, Shaheen, King and Hassan led the effort to privately persuade their fellow members of the Senate Democratic Caucus that the agreement was the best offer they were going to get from Republicans, who hadn’t shifted in six weeks on their refusal to negotiate over the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.

In the end, that wasn’t enough to get most members of the Senate Democratic caucus — including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told members involved in the talks about two weeks ago he could not support the deal they were sketching out, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss details of the negotiations.

Schumer continued privately urging them to hold out even as they moved to concede this week, the person added. But the senators had seen enough.

“This was the option on the table,” Shaheen said Monday. She added that some Democratic colleagues who voted against the deal privately told her, “I’m so glad you did that, but I’m not going to vote with you.”

With Thune and Schumer at loggerheads, senators on both sides engaged in on-and-off shuttle diplomacy.

Britt, notably, spoke with Schumer late last month — a conversation aimed, she said, at making sure he was open to allowing the trio of full-year spending bills to move forward. Shaheen, Hassan and King met with Thune, who pledged that he would give them a vote on an ACA extension bill that they would have until mid-December to draft.

“We sat across from him, we looked him eye to eye,” Shaheen said about the talks with Thune.

The trio met repeatedly with each other, as well as a group of roughly a dozen Senate Democrats that eventually included Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the party’s whip and highest-ranking Democrat who backed the effort. Durbin said he also spoke with Thune on Sunday, telling the South Dakota Republican that “I was counting on him to keep his word” on the ACA vote.

“He assured me he would,” Durbin added.

Thune publicly reiterated his commitment to the vote Monday, though he stopped well short of predicting a breakthrough.

“I think there’s some goodwill on this issue,” he told reporters. “We’ll see if something lands.”

On the Republican side of the aisle, Collins kept in close contact with senators as she worked to lock down the appropriations bills and close out a deal that would reopen the government.

Collins had privately pitched a six-point plan for ending the shutdown, and the eventual deal largely aligned with what she set out: enacting the three-bill “minibus,” teeing up another package of full-year bills, guaranteeing back pay for furloughed employees, promising the ACA vote, beefing up security funding for lawmakers and passing a stopgap bill to reopen all agencies.

Trump never engaged directly with Democrats after an unfruitful late-September meeting with the top party leaders. But GOP senators, including Britt, made sure the White House was on the same page as what was being discussed among the lawmakers. Britt identified Vice President JD Vance, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair and director of legislative affairs James Braid as the key officials who helped land the shutdown agreement.

Vance, Britt added, told her “whatever you need, just let me know.”

The open line to the White House came in handy in the final 48 hours, as Britt, Kaine and other senators hashed out the final terms of the RIF agreement.

“Obviously the White House set the framework, and Senator Kaine knew what he needed to achieve,” Britt said, describing her role as “being a conduit … and trying to make sure nothing got lost in translation.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Senate Democrats are projecting optimism they’ll be able to strike a bipartisan deal to extend Obamacare subsidies in the coming weeks. But Senate Republicans have their own plans.

Republicans appear to be quickly pivoting from the debate around Affordable Care Act tax credits to developing their own health policy agenda, with many conservatives now feeling like they have the blessing of President Donald Trump to pursue alternative solutions to spiking insurance premiums. Among the ideas they’re considering is the creation of new health savings accounts.

The shutdown-ending deal the Senate passed Monday night lacked an extension of the Obamacare subsidies, which expire at the end of the year, and Democrats instead secured a commitment for a vote on the credits next month. Democrats who brokered that government funding compromise are insisting they’ll be able to make headway on negotiations over the tax credits and are looking to land the bipartisan health care compromise by the second week of December.

But the fractured conversations among Republicans are promising to bog down negotiations as Obamacare beneficiaries begin to lock in their rates for the year ahead. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are starting to privately admit it’s likely too late to avert a major premium hike for millions of Americans in 2026.

“Obviously our folks have an interest in having some of our own ideas out there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday when asked whether Republicans would generate a counteroffer on the subsidies or collaborate with Democrats. “There’s some goodwill on this issue. We’ll see if something lands.”

Thune told reporters that Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo of Idaho, Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Senate GOP Steering Committee Chair Rick Scott of Florida and Finance Committee member Roger Marshall of Kansas will be among those spearheading talks with Democrats on a potential Obamacare compromise.

On the Democratic side, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to run point on health care talks, but other Democrats including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Senate Finance ranking member Ron Wyden of Oregon will be involved, according to a person granted anonymity to share internal caucus dynamics.

Shaheen, fellow New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine brokered the shutdown-ending deal Schumer opposed for not including an ironclad promise to extend the credits.

GOP members of Senate Finance, which has jurisdiction over the ACA, huddled Monday afternoon to broach their own ideas, though they were tight-lipped afterward about what proposals were discussed.

The gathering came after Cassidy and Scott called on Republicans to ditch the Obamacare tax credits altogether and fund tax-advantaged health savings accounts for individuals to pay directly for care.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a retiring Finance Committee Republican, said in an interview Monday that it would probably be smart to extend current policy for a year because of the encroaching deadline and then implement changes the following year.

“If you really want to bend the curve on health care, then you gotta have a serious discussion about what works and what’s not working in Obamacare and fix it,” he said.

Senate Republicans appeared Monday to be largely split over whether to pursue the option endorsed by Tillis or plow ahead on a more ambitious conservative overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Cassidy has been exhorting his colleagues to back a new idea to put money into employer-sponsored accounts that would allow individuals to set aside pre-tax dollars for medical expenses.

Trump over the weekend gave a boost to the concept when he said in a Truth Social post that “the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies… [should] be sent to the people.”

“If we extend the enhanced premium tax credits, $26 billion go to insurance companies,” Cassidy told reporters Monday. “If we put it into a flexible spending account, 100 percent is going to the person who’s making a decision of where to spend their dollars.”

Cassidy added that he’s spoken to Democrats about the idea who “support it” and “want to know more.”

A challenge for Democrats in the coming weeks will be to train Republicans’ focus on the task of finding a compromise around the ACA credits, with the clock ticking to reach a deal.

“We have to write a version that is good for our values that helps people, but also is designed to get some Republican votes,” said Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was among the eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who voted to reopen the government Monday evening.

But even if Senate Democrats can cobble together a deal that attracts enough votes in their chamber, Speaker Mike Johnson remains non-commital about putting an Obamacare bill on the floor in the House.

Some Congressional Republicans who say they are committed to drafting an extension of the ACA subsidies are advocating for conservative modifications, including lowering the income cap that determines eligibility and restricting the subsidies from covering abortions. An income limit could get bipartisan buy-in, but abortion restrictions are likely a nonstarter for most Democrats.

Some House Republicans who see political peril in letting the subsidies lapse say privately that there’s enough support on their side of the aisle to help Democrats force a vote on the subsidies through a so-called discharge petition. But whether Republicans would actually forge ahead in bucking House leadership remains to be seen.

“I know that there are Republicans who want to fix this, but there’s no resolve, as far as I can tell, to take this up in the House if we’re able to pass it in the Senate,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who voted against the bill to reopen the government Monday night. “And that’s why I couldn’t agree to that package.”

Jennifer Scholtes and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The Senate passed a government funding package Monday night that paves the way for ending the longest shutdown in history.

The 60-40 vote came roughly 24 hours after a bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators, in tandem with Majority Leader John Thune, reached an agreement that officially broke a weeks-long partisan stalemate.

The bipartisan bill still needs to pass the House and get signed by President Donald Trump before the government can reopen. Speaker Mike Johnson has advised his members the House could vote on the package as soon as Wednesday.

But Senate passage puts the federal funding lapse on track to be over by the end of the week. Trump is expected to lean on any potential House GOP holdouts, and a cadre of moderate House Democrats could support the plan in a break with party leaders, who are still smarting over the failure to secure an extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits.

Eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted to pass the deal, the same configuration of lawmakers who voted to advance the package the night before.

The package includes a three-bill “minibus” that would fund the Department of Agriculture and the FDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects, and the operations of Congress for all of the current fiscal year — the product of months of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations between top appropriators. All other agencies would be funded through Jan. 30.

The shutdown-ending agreement brokered in the Senate guarantees that federal employees laid off during the shutdown are rehired and gives federal employees back pay. It would require agencies to give written notice to Congress about the withdrawal of the layoff notices issued during the funding lapse, plus details on the amount of back pay owed.

It also would prevent some future firings with a blanket prohibition on reductions in force in any department or agency at least until the Jan. 30 end date of the continuing resolution. Democrats will also get a vote by mid-December on a bill to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies that are set to sunset at the end of the year.

Negotiators for the Senate Democratic Caucus — led by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine — said the ability to vote on the subsidies constituted a major win. Negotiators made the case privately to their colleagues that the framework agreement was the best offer they were going to get from the GOP, who did not budge during the private talks on their refusal to get an ACA deal while the government was shuttered.

But Democrats in both chambers, including members of leadership, questioned why they would support an agreement when Republicans didn’t come to the table on their one key demand — negotiating on the Obamacare credits.

Some House progressives and outside groups were seething Monday and searching for someone to blame, with some calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to resign from his leadership position even though he, too, voted against the deal.

“Republicans have refused to move an inch, so I cannot support the Republican bill that’s on the floor because it fails to do anything of substance to fix America’s health care crisis,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday, adding that the 41-day shutdown has “exposed the depths of Donald Trump’s cruelty.”

Despite opposition to the funding package from most Democrats and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, lawmakers ultimately declined to slow-walk the process, choosing instead to vote on the bill early Monday evening so they could leave town for a weeklong recess the next day.

Thune also appealed to his colleagues not to further delay the shutdown pain, which has led to thousands of flight delays and cancellations and an ongoing legal battle over the disbursement of critical federal food aid.

“I would encourage every member of this body, Democrat or Republican, pro-bill or anti-bill, not to stand in the way of being able to deliver the relief quickly. ….Let’s not pointlessly drag this bill out,” Thune said ahead of the vote.

In exchange for speedier passage of the spending package, Republican leaders gave Paul a vote on an amendment that would strike legislative language cracking down on intoxicating hemp products. His proposal to essentially preserve the status quo was defeated 76-24

Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans secured a provision in the bipartisan, shutdown-ending government funding package that could award senators hundreds of thousands of dollars for having their phone records collected without their knowledge as part of a Biden-era investigation.

That legislative language came directly from Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

In an interview Monday evening, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — who claims he was one of the lawmakers to have his data subpoenaed as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election — said Thune was responsible for the inclusion of provision.

“Leader Thune inserted that in the bill to provide real teeth to the prohibition on the Department of Justice targeting senators,” Cruz said.

A person close with direct knowledge of the legislation’s negotiations, granted anonymity to speak candidly, confirmed Thune oversaw the inclusion of the provision. It was tucked into the legislative branch spending measure for fiscal year 2026, part of a three-bill “minibus” of appropriations measures that Senators were set to vote on Monday night alongside a continuing resolution to fund the government through Jan. 30. The House is expected to clear the package for President Donald Trump’s signature as early as Wednesday.

Thune’s involvement is notable as the revelations that Smith collected phone records for several Senate Republicans has emboldened GOP lawmakers, prompting them to deflect Democrats’ accusations of weaponization of the Trump Justice Department and claim that President Joe Biden’s DOJ was looking to target conservatives.

“The abuse of power from the Biden Justice Department is the worst single instance of politicization our country has ever seen,” he continued. “I think it is Joe Biden’s Watergate, and the statutory prohibition needs to have real teeth and real consequences.”

Senate and House Judiciary Committee Republicans are now demanding answers from Smith, with Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley of Iowa seeking information from the administration relating to the probe and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio calling on Smith to sit for a transcribed interview.

Smith has said he is eager to appear before lawmakers in an open forum.

The provision states that electronic services providers must notify a Senate office if the provider receives a request to disclose the data from that senator, or senator’s office. Moreover, the legislative language stipulates that the provider cannot be barred from notifying the senate office under a court order, though that notification may be delayed in the event the senator in question is under criminal investigation.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia District Court approved measures that would have precluded phone providers from notifying the senators that their data was requested by federal law enforcement officers. Lawmakers have since renewed calls for his impeachment over the move, viewing him as hostile on a number of fronts to Trump’s agenda.

This portion of the legislative branch appropriations bill also appears to provide a cash bonus for those Senators who were targeted by Smith’s probe. If the provision included in the bill is violated, the Senator can sue the federal government, and if the lawmaker succeeds in the case, the person will be awarded $500,000 or more for each violation by the government.

Cruz said the provision was “very directly” a response to Smith’s actions.

Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch were not consulted on the provision as part of the otherwise bipartisan bill, according to a senior Democratic legislative aide granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Asked whether the funding in the form of a payout for senators was taking money away from other programs across the federal government, Cruz criticized the Justice Department under Biden as “the worst single instance of politicization our country has ever seen.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), an outspoken privacy hawk, argued that the provision’s inclusion in the spending bill was “very troubling,” given the seeming lack of oversight or discussion around its development.

He added that his GOP colleagues appeared to be distancing themselves from the language’s origins, suggesting Thune might be providing cover for rank-and-file Republicans who could have demanded it.

“It seems that there’s quite an effort on the other side, people saying that they don’t know anything about it,” he said. “Which ought to be a wakeup call to everybody about the possibility of abuse.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The House is set to return to work Wednesday after a staggering 54 days out of session. Ending the record government shutdown will be the least of Speaker Mike Johnson’s problems.

Tensions have been running high for weeks over Johnson’s decision to shut down the House for the duration of the shutdown, sparking intense criticism from Democrats and private alarm inside pockets of the House GOP.

With members now returning to Washington after spending nearly two months dispersed across the country, he is faced with jump-starting dormant committee work, tackling a looming health care deadline and resolving long-brewing internal conflicts over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and congressional stock-trading — if he can reopen the government first.

Asked Monday if he had the votes to pass the Senate-negotiated package, Johnson replied, “I think we will,” as he dashed into his office.

Johnson is already leaning heavily on President Donald Trump to get his conference behind the funding package. He made clear on a private call with House Republicans Monday morning that Trump wants the government reopened as soon as possible, and Trump signaled later in the day that he backs the deal.

GOP hard-liners who have traditionally opposed spending bills appear to be falling in line, arguing that the package constitutes a major win because it preempts a year-end omnibus bill that would fund the whole federal government through September and does not extend expiring Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, as Democrats had demanded.

Even the famously intransigent House Freedom Caucus “is cool” with the package, according to one Republican in the group who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Their support solves one of Johnson’s biggest headaches and puts the bill on a glide path to passage, with Trump ready to cajole any other holdouts.

The bigger challenge might be getting members to Washington for a final vote. They’re likely to face massive travel disruptions this week with FAA flight limits prompting airlines to trim thousands of domestic flights. Johnson urged GOP members Monday to begin traveling to Washington as soon as possible. Chiefs of staff also received a notice Monday morning for lawmakers to return to Washington by Tuesday evening, and be ready to vote Wednesday.

Once lawmakers arrive and reopen the government, Johnson will then have to confront other long-simmering controversies.

One issue he plans to confront immediately Wednesday, before the first House votes, is swearing in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva seven weeks after she won the special election to fill her late father’s Arizona House seat, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss his plans ahead of an official announcement.

But that in turn will jump-start another long-running GOP political hassle: Grijalva says she will be the 218th and decisive signature on a discharge petition to compel the release of the “Epstein files” — records held by the Justice Department that Trump has opposed sharing. That will start a cascade of legislative steps requiring the measure to be brought to the floor by early December.

Republican leadership has taken pains to avoid Epstein-related votes, which have generated fissures inside the GOP, but Johnson has said he won’t seek to block the discharge petition.

Separately, many members of both parties are pushing Johnson to advance a contentious bill that would ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks. Appropriators will also face the daunting task of drafting full-year spending bills for most of the federal government ahead of the new Jan. 30 shutdown deadline. And lawmakers on other committees will be forced to catch up on weeks of missed hearings and markups, with GOP leaders privately warning members that many late nights of work are in store upon their return.

The toughest internal battle Johnson will have to confront centers on health care. A brewing conflict over the expiring Obamacare subsidies — which the speaker was mostly able to keep under wraps with members out of town — is now set to spill out into the open in the coming days.

On one side, scores of Republicans are dead-set against extending the subsidies that have been at the center of the shutdown. On the other side, Johnson is facing a handful of unhappy GOP members, including some who are privately considering backing any discharge petition to sidestep Johnson and force a vote on an extension before the Obamacare tax credits expire Dec. 31.

“We will find a way,” said one House Republican who supports an extension and was granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal dynamics. Johnson told House Republicans on their Monday call that he is not committing to hold any vote on extending the subsidies. Asked later by reporters, he said only that there would be “a deliberative process.”

Across the aisle, he will be facing down over 200 angry Democrats who are already strategizing about how to turn their disappointment over the shutdown’s apparent anticlimactic ending into political advantage.

House Democrats will likely be unable to block the legislation to reopen the government this week, and many are fuming about what happened in the Senate.

Gathering on a private call Monday afternoon for their first party discussion since the Senate deal came together, members vented their anger about the eight Democratic and independent senators who broke ranks to advance the funding bill, according to five people granted anonymity to describe the discussion.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took steps to cool the internal tensions, offering support to his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, amid a fiery backlash Monday.

“Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats over the last seven weeks have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people, and I’m not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do,” he told reporters Monday.

He and other Democrats are trying to refocus attention on extending the health care subsidies, with Jeffries telling fellow Democrats on the private call he would pursue all options to force action, including a new discharge petition, the people said. Democrats believe enough House Republicans are willing to cross Johnson and circumvent his leadership, though the House might not be able to act quickly enough to prevent a massive hike in Americans’ health insurance bills in the coming months.

Democratic leaders are expecting their members to vote en masse against the Senate deal and are expected to formally recommend a “no” vote. But one centrist House Democrat granted anonymity to comment on internal discussions said at least a handful of colleagues are expected to vote for the funding package this week.

A spokesperson for the only Democrat to vote for a GOP-led stopgap spending bill ahead of the shutdown — retiring Maine Rep. Jared Golden — said his “position on using a government shutdown as a legislative strategy has been clear and has not changed.”

Golden also said he has “spent months having bipartisan conversations about how to build the support necessary to extend the ACA credits” and “looks forward to continuing those conversations with his colleagues in the days to come.”