Top lawmakers and the White House have finally reached a deal to close out the government funding fight that began more than a year ago, when Kevin McCarthy first took the speakership.

But it’s already too late to guarantee the monumental bipartisan agreement isn’t punctuated by a brief government shutdown. In the parlance of the George W. Bush administration’s terrorism risk alerts, the threat of a closure is firmly in the yellow zone.

Whether funding will lapse early Saturday morning for the Pentagon and key non-defense agencies is largely up to Speaker Mike Johnson, who will have to decide this week between three choices: Bend House rules to speed up passage, embrace a short funding patch to buy more time — or let federal cash stop flowing to most federal programs for a few days.

The speaker has not yet said whether he’ll stick to a pledge giving his members 72 hours to review the legislation, a move that would ratchet up the chances of Congress blowing past its deadline since that text is still being drafted.

Asked Tuesday about adhering to the 72-hour promise, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said, “That’s up to the speaker.”

Even if Johnson calls a House passage vote before the Saturday morning deadline, the government funding plan could still stall in the Senate, where leaders will need the agreement of all 100 members to fast-track debate. That process is already guaranteed to be politically tricky, with Republican senators eager to request amendment votes on issues ranging from immigration to earmarks.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Tuesday that he’s “hopeful we can finish the appropriations process without causing a lapse in government services.”

“We haven’t had a government shutdown since 2019. There’s no good reason for us to have one this week now that we’re getting very close to finishing the job,” he said.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) likened passage of the six-bill funding package to “legislative tyranny,” with no time to review a package that “will be considerably more than 1,000 pages long and contain hundreds of earmarks.”

“We now can’t expect to see the spending bill until Wednesday,” Lee complained, “even though” congressional leaders expect it to clear the Senate by Friday night.

A shutdown would last less than a week and would likely cause minimal disruption to most federal agencies, but both sides acknowledge that it wouldn’t look good to voters. The Biden administration could even tell departments to hold off on deploying shutdown procedures, if the bill is quickly headed for President Joe Biden’s desk.

Each president has the power to lessen, or escalate, the severity of a government shutdown. In 2019, when funding lapsed for many federal agencies for 35 days, then-President Donald Trump tried to downplay the effects of the shutdown as he worked to convince Democrats to fund the border wall. In 2013, then-President Barack Obama ensured maximum disruption to federal programs as he waited for House Republicans to cave on demands for fiscal reforms and axing Obamacare.

This time, it behooves Biden to direct federal agencies to carry out as much of their duties as possible without funding coming in.

A decision by Johnson to observe the 72-hour pledge would do little to quell the already-swirling Republican angst over the spending package that’s now expected to be released late Tuesday or sometime Wednesday. Conservatives are complaining that the six-bill funding bundle was largely negotiated behind closed doors and will ultimately get dropped on lawmakers at the last minute, despite party leaders’ long-running promises to avoid this outcome.

Some Republicans are blaming the White House for the delay, noting that the Biden administration jumped in over the weekend and rejected a fallback plan that would have saddled the Department of Homeland Security with a flat budget through the rest of the fiscal year. White House officials insisted that a year-long stopgap would have been detrimental to border security efforts ahead of an anticipated spring migration surge.

Johnson successfully split a dozen annual appropriations bills into two packages for the current fiscal year, pushing to avoid a dreaded “omnibus,” the Hill terminology for the bundling of 12 measures to maximize efficiency and minimize political risk.

But that’s done little to appease Johnson’s right flank, who are lamenting the same old behind-the-scenes negotiating, with much of the decision-making clustered at the leadership level.

Aggressive fiscal hawk Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Congress is back in “swamp mode, where the omnibus is written behind closed doors.”

“Members are told to take it or leave it, and although Republicans control the House, more Democrats vote for it than Republicans because it spends more money than when [Nancy] Pelosi was in charge,” Massie posted on X.

Besides the Pentagon and DHS, funding is set to lapse Saturday morning for the departments of State, Labor, Education and Treasury, along with the IRS and foreign operations. A shutdown would also hit federal housing and health programs, as well as congressional operations.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report. 

Two retired U.S. generals criticized the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as they diverged from President Joe Biden’s position on the military exit.

Retired Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, and retired Gen. Mark Milley, former Joint Chiefs chair, said the exit from Afghanistan in August 2021 came up short, even as the country prepared to enter its second full decade in the conflict.

”If there was culpability in this attack, it lies in policy decisions that created the environment,” McKenzie said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I — and I alone — bear full military responsibility for what happened at Abbey Gate,” he said, referencing a suicide bombing which killed 13 servicemembers.

Milley was quick to say the impacts from the withdrawal were not due to Biden’s ultimate decision alone also but that “it was the cumulative effect of many decisions over many years of war.” However, he was quick to offer praise to the U.S. military troops who jumped in during the chaotic evacuation.

“To all veterans of Afghanistan, hold your heads high. Each of you did what the country asked of you under extreme circumstances,” Milley said. “It was a pretty consistent assessment … that the withdrawal of the military forces and the contractors and the NATO forces that went with it would ultimately” lead to a collapse of the government.

Both generals appeared voluntarily before the committee and testified the evacuation plan came “too little, too late” in light of the situation on the ground.

This is not the first time the generals have testified on their disagreements with the administration’s stance on the withdrawal. Both told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2021 that they disagreed with Biden’s decision on the matter, a rare break for two sitting generals from the commander-in-chief.

Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who has clashed with the State Department over records related to the withdrawal, offered his assessment of the Biden administration’s approach to ending the conflict: “Fail they did.”

“I will not rest until I get to the bottom of this tragedy. You deserve answers,” the Texan said, addressing the families of some of the 13 servicemembers killed in the Abbey Gate attack. “The American people deserve answers. And I intend to deliver.”

McCaul indicated that “we will have an agreement” to boost the number of Afghani citizens eligible for special immigrant visas, though the exact total remains under negotiation.

Ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) argued a proper understanding of the conflict requires reviewing the actions taken “over four administrations” in the region.

“There’s not really anything new that was learned today because you’ve testified to it before,” Meeks said.

Joe Gould contributed to this report.

Speaker Mike Johnson and the White House locked in a deal on full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, our Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes reported, clinching the final piece of the funding puzzle.

On Tuesday morning, leaders made the official announcement of the deal, and noted drafting of the text will begin immediately. (More on that below.)

But as the weekend deadline on government funding approaches, a (brief) shutdown may still be in the cards. Here’s why:

These things always take time. Negotiators and staff must turn that agreement into legislative text, a process that inevitably takes some time.

The 72-hour-rule: Johnson has promised members at least 72 hours to read and review legislation. Depending on when text eventually emerges, that could carry us into the weekend and a short shutdown. The speaker might always try to waive this rule, potentially provoking a rebellion from his far-right flank (who are already out in opposition).

The Senate factor: Assuming the package does eventually pass the House, the rules of the Senate mean any one senator can slow down consideration. Leaders have been able to reach agreements on prior packages of amendment votes to placate conservatives displeased with the funding bills, but we’ll see if one materializes here.

Could it go faster? Passage of these funding bills may be the last thing standing in the way of both chambers from a scheduled two-week recess. In March Madness terms, Jet Fumes are a No. 1 seed that usually wins.

What’s in this hefty package? Six bills — Homeland Security, Defense, Financial Services-General Government Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch and State-Foreign Operations — that collectively fund about 70 percent of the federal government.

Meanwhile: Both chambers return to Washington on Tuesday as they await text of the funding package. The Senate will vote on the confirmation Nicole Berner to a spot on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. House lawmakers will vote on suspensions at 6:30 p.m., including a bipartisan effort to modernize the process of getting your passport.

Also, for your radar: The House Rules Committee meets at 4 p.m. to tee up consideration of several pieces of energy legislation. The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear testimony at 1 p.m. from two former generals — Mark Milley and Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie — on the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Top negotiators have locked in a bipartisan deal on full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security, allowing congressional leaders to put the finishing touches on a broader spending agreement in the coming days, according to a source familiar with the talks.

A short stopgap funding patch could still be needed to head off a partial government shutdown at midnight Saturday morning for the Pentagon and many key non-defense agencies, since bill text is likely to take at least another day to finalize.

The fiscal 2024 accord on Homeland Security cash follows days of harried negotiations and a last-minute intervention from the White House over the weekend, with Biden administration officials rejecting a fallback plan that would have saddled the agency with stagnant funding through September. The White House had insisted that a year-long stopgap for DHS would prove detrimental to border security efforts, in anticipation of a migration surge this spring.

The Homeland Security spending measure joins five other bills needed to fund about 70 percent of the federal government, including the military and major health programs, before a partial government shutdown hits Saturday after midnight. The eleventh hour negotiations over DHS, the most contentious of the spending bills, has pushed Congress perilously closer to that deadline.

Legislative text of the six-bill funding bundle is now expected late Tuesday or Wednesday, potentially teeing up a House vote on Friday at the earliest, if Speaker Mike Johnson adheres to a pledge to give Republicans 72 hours to review legislative text. Once the package passes the House, Senate leaders will need consent from all 100 senators to ensure speedy votes on the spending package. That task is already expected to be politically tricky, with Republicans likely to demand a swath of amendment votes on issues ranging from immigration to earmarks.

Besides budgets for the military and DHS, the package congressional leaders are aiming to clear for Biden’s signature in the coming days covers funding for health, education, housing and labor programs. It also includes funding for foreign operations, the IRS, congressional operations and the District of Columbia, along with the departments of State and Treasury.

President Joe Biden’s late-stage bid to save the Department of Homeland Security from a flat budget is pushing Congress perilously close to a Saturday shutdown of most of the federal government.

Heading into the November election, Biden is under increasing pressure to counter Republican attacks that his administration is failing to address spiking migration at the southern border, particularly as officials anticipate a spring surge with warmer weather. The Homeland Security spending bill likely represents the last chance for congressional leaders and the White House to boost budgets for border security and related matters following last month’s collapse of a bipartisan immigration deal in the Senate.

Which means the stakes are high for the current impasse over the DHS budget as funding for more than 70 percent of the federal government is set to expire at week’s end, including military and foreign operations spending, plus federal health, education and housing programs.

Top lawmakers have considered endgame negotiations on the Homeland Security funding bill as perhaps the most troublesome in the entire package ever since Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border and foreign aid deal. Thanks to funding limits set by last summer’s bipartisan debt package, Congress is working with very little extra money and competing priorities when it comes to border personnel, security, humanitarian needs and more.

“Republicans had their chance to write immigration policy. They threw it out the window. So we’re not going to write immigration policy on an appropriations bill,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), leader of the subpanel in charge of Homeland Security funding, said last week.

Thanks to an eleventh-hour push by the White House, negotiators are now speeding to save DHS from stagnant funding through the rest of the fiscal year. Lawmakers had initially accepted that fallback option in the interest of closing out talks on the most contentious spending bill in Congress’ second six-bill bundle to fund the government. But the Biden administration pushed back, arguing that a stopgap funding patch would hamstring agencies already struggling to address migration on the southern border.

The prolonged talks mean that House and Senate votes on any spending agreement will likely get pushed to Friday — leaving little room for delay in both chambers where things can easily go off the rails, right up against the partial shutdown deadline.

Besides the DHS funding bill, the five other measures in the package have been finalized. But the entire spending package is expected to hinge on the fate of the border and immigration negotiations, since it is politically unworkable to try to pass the homeland security bill on its own once the military and key non-defense agencies are fully funded.

Further increasing pressure on top lawmakers to wrap up funding negotiations: Both the House and Senate are scheduled to adjourn on Friday for a two-week recess. Conservatives complain that aligning the government shutdown deadline with that scheduled departure is a typical ploy to force agreement on a massive funding package that will be unveiled late.

“It shouldn’t be lost on anyone,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), “that they set this up in that way to create this sort of contrived emergency, against which they want the ability to message against anyone expressing concerns about the bill of desiring a shutdown, which is completely disingenuous and wildly unprofessional.”

Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.

Montana Democrats launched a million-dollar voting initiative Monday that will work to turn out Montana’s tribal voters for Jon Tester in his toughest Senate race yet.

Native American voters have been helping the Democratic senator since he first won his seat in 2006. Tribal members make up nearly seven percent of Montana’s population, and the Democratic-leaning voting bloc could be pivotal to determining next year’s Senate majority.

The campaign, titled Big Sky Victory, plans to revive their digital outreach program from the 2018 campaign, while also employing more than 50 Native American organizers across the state and opening more than 20 offices in tribal communities.

In 2018, Tester’s campaign spent just more than $600,000 on a tribal voting initiative, including a sweeping Facebook ad campaign featuring members of six Montana tribes. Many of them urged tribal members to vote for Tester in their native language. In 2024, the campaign plans to double their base spend to energize the Native vote.

“Jon Tester will lead us into battle,” a member of the Fort Peck tribe said in one ad, in both the Dakota language and English, urging viewers to “vote Jon Tester on Nov. 6.”

“Big Sky Victory is the earliest, best-funded organizing program Montana has ever seen, and we’re ready to hit the ground running,” Montana Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign Director Nick Marroletti said in a statement.

There are about 60,000 eligible Native American voters in Montana, and Tester won in 2018 by just 18,000 votes.

Native voters are “hugely important to the Democratic base,” said Jim Messina, an Obama White House alum and former adviser to Tester with deep political roots in Montana. Messina referenced Tester cutting into Republican Sen. Conrad Burns’ support among Native Americans in 2006, which helped him unseat the incumbent.

“Indian Country is facing tough battles in 2024, and the outcome of this election couldn’t be more important,” said Blackfoot tribal member Cinda Burd Ironmaker, the Native vote political director for the Montana Democratic Party who has been put in charge of the initiative. “With this historic organizing effort, Native voters will have a powerful voice in 2024 and elect Jon Tester and our other Democratic candidates this November.”

Funding is a key element that is often lacking in Montana when it comes to turning out Native American voters. Some majority-Native American counties have consistently lower turnout rates than majority-white counties. Three of Montana’s largest majority-Native American counties — Glacier, Big Horn and Roosevelt — were also three of the counties with the lowest turnout rates in 2020. While the statewide average in 2020 was 81 percent, all three failed to break 70 percent.

Tribal voters face hurdles common in rural areas like long distances to drive to polling locations, a lack of formal addresses and poor cell phone service — as well as state laws that make it harder for them to vote. In 2022, a Montana judge struck down two laws passed by the state’s Legislature in 2021 on the grounds that they disproportionately hampered the ability of Native Americans to vote.

Overcoming these hurdles takes funding — something Native American voting advocates have been asking for.

“We have seen where there’s been enough money … we’ve been nearly able to close that Native to white voting gap,” says Bret Healy, a consultant with multi-state nonprofit Four Directions Native Vote. “But it takes extraordinary resources.”

The Montana GOP did not immediately comment in response to the initiative.

Congressional leaders are hoping to wrap up negotiations Monday for the six-measure spending package that would finally close out government funding work for the current fiscal year, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

The Department of Homeland Security is now expected to be funded under a fresh bill within the six-measure package, rather than at static budget totals first enacted well over a year ago, following last-minute involvement from the White House over the weekend. While negotiators were considering a lengthy DHS spending stopgap because of partisan disputes over budgets for immigration and border security agencies, they pivoted over the weekend to dealmaking on updated levels.

Again facing a partial government shutdown at week’s end — this time for the Pentagon and many other key non-defense agencies — both sides have accused the other of brinkmanship.

A senior GOP aide said the White House is guilty of a “delay in communicating” the funding needs of DHS, pushing negotiations to “the brink of a shutdown.” And a White House official claimed over the weekend that Republicans are attempting to “sow chaos on the border ahead of November.”

Besides the Pentagon and DHS, the legislation would fund foreign operations and the IRS, along with education, health and labor programs. It also covers funding for congressional operations and the District of Columbia, plus the departments of State and Treasury.

Even if text is released on Monday, lawmakers are still risking a partial government funding lapse beginning just after midnight Saturday morning.

Debuting bill text on Monday would allow the House to vote on Thursday, since GOP leaders like to give lawmakers a full 72 hours to review bill text. But Senate leaders would then need to quickly lock in a time agreement to make sure the legislation can head to President Joe Biden’s desk by Friday night.