The Senate agreed to a deal to vote on extending an expiring foreign surveillance law on Friday evening, an agreement that puts Congress on track to avoid a weekend expiration of a key program.

The legislation, which reauthorizes Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has already passed the House and after passing the Senate will go to President Joe Biden for his signature after a prolonged congressional battle over access to Americans’ information.

“We have good news for national security,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced the deal. “Allowing FISA to expire would have been dangerous.”

Senate leaders urgently warned senators not to go over the midnight authority deadline as the chamber haggled over amendments, warning it would endanger national security that terrorists could exploit and risk a loss of authority in the program. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put the choice in stark terms on Friday morning, saying the choice before the Senate amounted to: “Pass the House reform bill, or give free reign to foreign intelligence operatives and terrorists to target America.”

So did the Biden administration, which worried that a lapse would mean private companies could fight data collection practices. Though some members argued the law could briefly expire with little consequence, that scenario isn’t “anything to be trifled with. So any temporary lapse is serious,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

In typical Senate fashion, the chamber took it right up to the brink of a midnight deadline as senators haggled over amendments. Several different bipartisan coalitions sought to require warrants to access the incidental collection of Americans’ communications and scuttle a provision changing which data providers would have to participate in the program.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), whose warrant amendment drew particular opposition from the Biden administration, said the Intelligence Community “has been against any change” in the 702 program. Indeed, Senate leaders are preparing to defeat Durbin’s amendment and others, in part because changing the bill at this late stage would require the bill to go back to the House and cause a brief shutdown of the law.

While Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he was “sympathetic” to some of the amendments, it was too late to try and rewrite the bill when up against such a tight timeline.

Conservatives have made it abundantly clear they detest Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to work with Democrats. To other Republicans, it’s a necessary evil — specifically because of those hardliner colleagues.

Many centrist Republicans said on Friday that Johnson has been left with no other choice, given threats to his speakership and unwieldy demands for border security language that could never pass the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden.

“We’re asking the impossible,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said in an interview. “And that’s not fair to Mike Johnson. It wasn’t fair to Kevin McCarthy. It’s not fair to anybody.”

“We’ve got a group of members who refuse to allow the floor to function. And, obviously, the speaker’s to be commended for finding a way forward,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) in an interview. “We can worry about the political crap later.”

To be sure, Johnson’s now broken nearly every congressional norm in his reliance on Democrats to tee up a package of foreign aid to benefit Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, among other priorities. More Democrats (165) than Republicans (151) supported the rule, a stunning development for longtime Hill watchers. (More on that below.)

But it was a common refrain from the conference’s governing wing: Conservatives gave the speaker no viable alternative — especially now that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are explicitly threatening his gavel.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said Johnson’s been challenged like no speaker before him.

“Mike Johnson deserves better support, but I for one am just very, very proud of what we would all refer to as a profile in courage in the face of these kinds of threats,” he said.

Still, that’s not to say Johnson won’t face consequences for the severe break, as conservatives have just started to air their fury. Most lawmakers were unwilling to speculate how that would affect the speaker long term.

“It never helps when we pass something that’s not conservative,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, told us.

“Mike Johnson is a friend of mine. He’s a brother in Christ. Love him to death. I don’t agree with his play calls,” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), one of the more mild criticisms we’ve heard about Johnson recently.

It’s not a unanimous position, though. Freedom Caucus co-founder Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), for example, supported the rule.

And some centrists went even further. They didn’t just blame conservatives for forcing Johnson’s hand — they explicitly said any sort of deal or extra power that went to Democrats from now on was hardliners’ fault.

“It’s not good enough that they can just vote no,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who represents a swing seat carried by Biden. “It’s like they have to force all the rest of us to vote a certain way or they will take the ship down.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

As the House nears a Saturday vote on a foreign aid plan that’s driven a wedge within the fractious GOP, a Democratic worry is persisting: That they, and President Joe Biden, will pay a hefty price with their base if they don’t change their approach to Israel aid.

The recent back-and-forth of strikes between Israel and Iran, while it hiked pressure on Republicans to take up the foreign aid package, didn’t exactly dissuade progressives from their leeriness of an unconditional extension of U.S. assistance for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As some Democrats see it, they have a moral obligation to do more for Palestinians — and will suffer politically with young and Muslim voters this fall if they don’t handle the Gaza war differently.

Take the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York. He confirmed Friday that he still has not signed off on an $18 billion F-15 fighter jet sale to Israel in response to a Biden administration request that typically goes to the top members in both parties on foreign aid panels. While Meeks said he is still doing his due diligence on the F-15 deal, he also said Black voters in his district are sensitive to the treatment of Palestinians.

“The Black community, in my estimation, is always looking at — wanting to — make sure that you help those who have trouble helping themselves,” said Meeks, historically an Israel supporter, in an interview prior to the Iranian strike.

“They basically want to see a situation where folks can live side by side, and don’t understand why you don’t have a two-state solution,” he added. “I’m hearing that over and over again, because they think that’s fair.”

The House is likely to pass its Israel aid package on Saturday easily, given the level of GOP support, but the Democratic vote count will be closely watched by the administration and outside-group supporters of the Israeli government. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and an advocate for separate votes on Ukraine and Israel aid, is among those preparing to vote no.

She readily described Democrats’ approach to Israel as a “vulnerability,” adding that the party performed well in 2020 “because we were thoughtful and intentional about putting together a coalition that could hold together. And that coalition depended on yes, Muslim and Arab and Palestinian votes — but also young people in general, Black folks, labor unions. It’s not just one small group of people that have a concern about what’s happening in Gaza.”

One recent March poll from Gallup found Biden with a 27 percent approval rating for his handling of the Middle East conflict. Just 47 percent of Democrats said they backed the president’s handling of the situation.

Many progressives acknowledge the need for the U.S. to support Israel against attacks from Hamas terrorists and Iran, but also question sending unconditioned aid amid the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza and refusal by the Netanyahu government to let in adequate humanitarian aid.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), said that Iran’s attack on Israel hasn’t changed his previous calls for a rethinking of U.S. strategy toward Israel.

“I am deeply troubled by what may come next in Gaza. Already the civilian death toll is unbelievably high,” McGovern said. He later indicated that he plans to vote against the Israel aid bill, describing Netanyahu as “out of control and actually undercutting Israel security.”

It’s not just liberals sounding the electoral alarm, though. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a moderate House member running for an open Senate seat, said voters skeptical of unconditional Israel aid cannot be ignored, adding that she believes the Biden team is aware of the challenge.

“Look, 13 percent of primary voters voted ‘uncommitted’ in our primary, so it’s definitely an issue,” she said. “It’s incumbent on anyone running, including myself, to make the case to those uncommitted voters that we want them to vote Democratic and not for Donald Trump.”

Her swing-state colleague, Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), agreed.

“The risks are there — that’s for sure,” Kildee, who’s retiring after this Congress, said in an interview.

Republicans have been unwavering in support for Israel and Netanyahu even amid the mounting civilian toll and as the conflict stretches beyond the six-month mark — even more stridently following the Iranian attack. Most slammed Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s lengthy floor address calling for new elections in the key U.S. ally, though the Democratic leader strongly condemned the latest Iranian attack.

To be sure, not all Democrats agree that Biden is failing. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said Biden is doing “a great job” on Israel and that “fringies” ought to factor in that hurting Biden at the polls helps Trump — whose handling of Israel policy would displease them more.

“Anyone that now is trying to argue for ‘uncommitted’ or abandon Biden, if you’re going to play with that fire you’re going to own that burn,” he said. “Guess what? If Trump wins, then you can celebrate the Muslim ban version 2.0. There’s so much at stake right now, so much.”

Connor O’Brien and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

It’s not often the Senate whip finds himself at odds with his own party’s administration, yet the controversial surveillance bill has prompted that exact split — with only hours left until the law expires.

The Biden administration is moving to crush an amendment from Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that would prohibit access to American communications without a warrant. Durbin said this week that he will not be able to support reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s section 702 program, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, without changes. The program incidentally sweeps up information from Americans, which has worried privacy advocates in both parties for years.

Durbin’s amendment continues the long-running debate in the House, which debated before passing the bill last week whether to require a warrant for accessing American communications. Lawmakers in that chamber barely defeated a similar amendment, with Speaker Mike Johnson providing the decisive vote to block it. The intelligence community has repeatedly argued that increasing warrant requirements could imperil national security.

No stranger to skepticism of surveillance programs, Durbin said his amendment would be “narrower” because it focuses on a smaller number of situations. He said Wednesday that “if the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge.”

The amendment from the Illinois senator and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) would need just a simple majority to get adopted. That’s a significant concern for leadership, since changing the surveillance bill would mean sending it back to the House, when a lapse with uncertain implications kicks in at midnight.

And the administration is moving swiftly to stop it.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen called Durbin’s amendment a “flat-out prohibition on our ability to use U.S. person queries to disrupt threats and protect Americans.”

“It is also not a ‘compromise.’ It’s an extreme proposal that cripples the value of Section 702, especially in protecting Americans from lethal plotting, hacking, recruitment as spies, and more,” Olson said.

The administration dispatched National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to Capitol Hill to urge quick passage of the reauthorization. And several other top officials, such as Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, CIA Director Bill Burns and Attorney General Merrick Garland, are talking to senators.

The Senate has not yet clinched a deal to vote on the legislation before that expiration, a pact which will require agreement from all 100 senators. Durbin’s amendment is just one of several that may get a vote Friday.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said an amendment agreement is “going extraordinarily slowly” and Senate Republicans discussed on Friday how important it was to avoid even a brief lapse of the program.

Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.

A third Republican is now on board for ousting Speaker Mike Johnson: Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar.

The conservative signed on to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) proposal to remove Johnson on Friday after Democrats provided the necessary votes to start debate on a multi-part foreign aid plan, infuriating conservatives.

Gosar follows Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in supporting Greene, though it’s still not clear when she might force a vote on toppling Johnson. If she does, the speaker will need Democrats to help him keep the gavel — a precarious position for a GOP leader.

In a press release explaining his position, Gosar noted his opposition to sending more money to Ukraine while arguing there’s still a high level of illegal crossings on the southern border that he likened to an “invasion.”

“Rather than spending the resources to secure our southern border and combating the invasion of 11 million illegals and despite repeated promises there would be no additional money going to Ukraine without first securing our border, the United States House of Representatives, under the direction of the Speaker, is on the verge of sending another $61 billion to further draw America into an endless and purposeless war in Ukraine,” Gosar wrote. “I have added my name in support of the motion to vacate the Speaker. Our border cannot be an afterthought.”

Gosar was sitting next to Greene on the House floor during the procedural vote to advance foreign aid, which infuriated Johnson’s right flank.

Other Republicans like Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) have signaled they may be open to backing the ouster effort, potentially doubling down on the type of House-busting vote that was unprecedented before this Congress.

Greene has not said when she plans to pull the trigger on the motion to boot Johnson, but some of her colleagues believe she is waiting for a bigger group to rally around her efforts.

Even if only three Republicans opt to terminate his speakership, Johnson would need Democratic support to keep his gavel if the vote happens anytime soon, given his incredibly narrow margin. That help looks possible, after he greenlit Ukraine aid coming to the House floor.

Centrist Democrats, who were eager to see the foreign aid package pass a series of procedural hurdles — with a passage vote scheduled Saturday — have previously said they would be open to discussions about saving Johnson.

“I would be one of the first to raise my hand and say that I want to be part of that conversation, to see if we can really govern together or be in a position where he’s able to govern and bring those bipartisan bills,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said in an interview. “I have said over and over that bringing us bipartisan bills is such a huge part of this role as speaker right now, and that those bills will pass. We just need them.”

That could significantly hurt him in other ways. Some Republicans have already warned that leaning on Democrats for survival is untenable — and conservatives could continue pushing votes to boot Johnson absent a rules change.

Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.

The House officially opened debate Friday on Speaker Mike Johnson’s multi-part foreign aid plan after Democrats stepped in to help overcome conservative defections.

The House voted 316-94 to bring up the four-bill package, which includes aid for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, as well as GOP policy sweeteners. But underscoring deep intra-party frustrations with Johnson’s strategy, 55 Republicans voted against advancing the package — a once unheard-of GOP rebellion that has grown more common given their single-digit margin.

Normally that would be enough to scuttle Johnson’s plan, but 165 Democrats voted to bring up the bills. It’s the first time they’ve done so during Johnson’s speakership — an alliance that is likely to fuel calls from his most vocal critics to strip him of his gavel.

The House is now slated to vote on the bills early Saturday afternoon, and Johnson will once again need substantial help from Democrats to get them over to the Senate. Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Friday that he plans to support the package, while Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) declined to state his position when asked.

“I’m pleased that we were able to come to a bipartisan agreement,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.). He added: “It’s working out the way the speaker wanted it to, which is that every member is free to vote their conscience … in a way they usually aren’t.”

The House structured the package so as to ease its consideration in the Senate, requiring less time and procedural votes to pass the upper chamber. While senators are scheduled to be out of Washington next week, there’s ongoing discussion about canceling that recess to take up the House plan if it passes.

Democrats waited to back the rule Friday morning until they got a signal from their leadership. They trickled into the chamber Friday morning and mostly held back their votes on the question of whether to start debate. But the floodgates opened when party leaders walked up to the dais and turned in their green voting cards, indicating they would vote yes.

The procedural victory for Johnson comes after the Rules Committee signed off on the structure of debate close to midnight on Thursday after a marathon meeting. Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) voted against teeing up the bills for the floor, but Democrats joined the remaining Republicans on the panel to advance the bills out of committee — an unusual step for the minority party in the House.

“It’s not satisfactory,” said Rules Chair Michael Burgess (R-Texas), noting that Republicans should have been able to provide the votes for the rule on their own.

Burgess said it’s up to the speaker as to whether the three conservatives should remain on the committee and continue to ensnare GOP legislation.

Three of the bills largely mirror the Senate-passed $95 billion foreign aid package, which previously stalled out in the lower chamber.

The Israel aid measure would provide more than $26 billion for the country. That includes $4 billion to replenish the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems and about $9.2 billion in humanitarian aid.

The Ukraine aid bill would provide $60.8 billion to assist in the ongoing war against the Russian invasion. The bill includes about $10 billion in repayable economic assistance – with the expectation that the money likely won’t be repaid, doing little to placate conservative Ukraine aid critics.

The third bill includes more than $8 billion in Indo-Pacific assistance, while the fourth would enact a host of policy provisions, including revised legislation that would force the divestiture of TikTok by its Beijing-based parent company.

Olivia Beavers, Burgess Everett and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Look for something quite unusual on the House floor Friday: Democrats will likely provide the necessary votes on a rule setting up debate on a foreign aid package for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and a fourth pillar that also includes a TikTok divestment bill.

How this will work: House lawmakers will vote on the rule, passed thanks to Democrats on the Rules Committee late Thursday, around 10:30 a.m. The vote breakdown promises to be a strange one; the minority party virtually never votes for a majority-led rule. Final votes on the bills would then be held Saturday, but the rule allows them to be reassembled and sent over to the Senate as one.

“We may be in the minority in the House right now, but [House Minority Leader Hakeem] @RepJeffries is essentially functioning as the real Speaker already,” wrote Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.). “Work horses not just show horses.” More from Jordain on the late-night drama.

Also on the agenda: The chamber will begin considering a modified version of their strict border security measure under suspension of the rules, which would require two-thirds support to pass. Republicans could not pass a rule for this measure in Rules earlier in the week and Democrats don’t back it, so passage chances appear low.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the Senate struggled Thursday evening to reach agreement on a package of amendments to a reauthorization of a controversial surveillance tool, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That program faces a midnight lapse.

Votes are not yet scheduled but are expexted Friday. “We are continuing to work on an agreement on the FISA bill,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said late Thursday on the floor.

Speaker Mike Johnson‘s foreign aid package will advance to the floor, after Democrats on the Rules Committee stepped in to counter conservative defections.

The contentious panel vote tees up the four-bill plan for floor consideration on aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as a fourth bill of related GOP policy priorities meant to entice otherwise skeptical Republicans to at least vote to allow debate on the package.

The bundle still needs to clear a so-called rule vote on the House floor before lawmakers formally begin debate and move to votes on passage of the individual bills. Though the House will hold separate final votes on each of the four bills, which is expected to occur on Saturday, they’ll be merged into one bill before being sent to the Senate.

Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) voted against teeing up the bills for the floor. Normally opposition from three conservatives would be enough to scuttle Johnson’s plan in the committee. But Democrats on the panel on Thursday night helped move the package to the floor — a step that typically the minority party doesn’t do in the House.

Democrats are also expected to need to help formally start debate on the House floor, where Republicans can only lose two of their own members before needing help from across the aisle.

Johnson is expected to lose at least several of his own members on the rule vote on the floor, amid skepticism in his right flank over more money for Ukraine and angst because GOP leadership didn’t link the foreign aid package to new U.S. border provisions.

Johnson had intended to bring up a GOP border bill separately this week but it derailed in the Rules Committee on Wednesday amid Republican frustration on his strategy. Instead, GOP leadership announced on Thursday night they will bring the border bill up under suspension on Friday. That will require it to meet a higher two-thirds threshold in order to pass, which it is not expected to meet.

Norman said on Thursday that it was “tough” to vote no in the Rules Committee on bringing the foreign aid package to the floor, but that he would oppose it.

“We met with Speaker Johnson yesterday. … Our only ask was to include a border bill in this rule, not a stand-alone, which the Senate will sit on, give us something,” Norman said on Thursday.

Linking the border to the foreign aid package would likely scuttle its chances of passing in the Senate, which also has to pass the House package before it can go to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Johnson has defended his strategy on the foreign aid package, but it also comes with a major risk to his speakership with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threatening to trigger a vote to oust him.

She told reporters this week that she won’t call up her resolution to try to strip Johnson of his gavel before the foreign aid package comes to the floor. Johnson has publicly brushed off the motion to vacate threat, telling reporters: “If I operated out of fear over a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job.”

But Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, acknowledged that Johnson has “had a lot of pressure on him.”

“I was with him the night before he made his decision and I know he takes it very personally,” McCaul said. “He told me the next day ‘I want to be on the right side of history.’”