WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believed Republicans would vote to end the partial government shutdown by at least Tuesday.
“I believe we’ll be done at least by Tuesday. We have the logistical challenge of getting everyone into town,” he said, as traffic problems persist after snowstorms affecting travel in the southeastern U.S.
The United States is expected to enter a brief shutdown on Saturday after Congress failed to approve a deal to fund a wide range of businesses. The Senate easily passed a spending bill on Saturday, but the House was out of town.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been working to ensure that the debate over immigration enforcement does not disrupt other government operations. That’s in sharp contrast to last fall, when both sides were at loggerheads in a health care dispute that led to a government shutdown that lasted a record 43 days and cost the U.S. economy an estimated $11 billion.
The Senate-approved deal would separate the Department of Homeland Security from broader spending plans, allowing lawmakers to approve funding for agencies such as the Pentagon and Labor Department while considering new restrictions on federal immigration agents amid uproar over the shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Johnson said “our intention” is to have funding available to all agencies except Homeland Security by Tuesday, “and then we will have two weeks of good-faith negotiations to resolve this issue.”
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Alexander Smith, Sergio Nong and Chizu Nomiyama)
