Senate eyes possible Friday government funding vote

Senators are preparing for a possible vote on Friday if the House is able to send them an amended government funding bill.

Senators and aides say they’ve been told to tentatively plan for a vote around noon on Friday, even as scores of senators have already left Washington after passing a seven-week stopgap funding measure on Wednesday night.

The plan is tentative and underscores the level of uncertainty injected into the funding fight after President Trump told House lawmakers on Thursday that he wouldn’t sign the Senate bill due to its lack of funding for his proposed border wall.{mosads}

Without a deal, a partial government shutdown will begin on Saturday.

“The leader’s office sent out a notice to expect a possible vote around noon tomorrow, but I think the emphasis was on ‘possible,'” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

House Republicans unveiled a proposal Thursday to add $5 billion for the border wall as well as disaster aid money to the Senate’s seven-week stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution or CR.

House members cleared a rule governing debate of their new bill on Thursday evening. They still need to approve the legislation.

Even in the House is able to pass the legislation with border wall funding, it’s considered dead on arrival in the Senate.

Blunt acknowledged that a bill with $5 billion could not pass in the Senate. And GOP senators left a closed-door lunch earlier Thursday in visible disbelief that Trump was refusing to sign the bill they passed the previous night.

“I’m not sure what leverage the president thinks he has at this moment. I think the way you create leverage is keep this issue alive” into next year, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters.

Senate leadership had projected confidence on Wednesday that Trump would sign seven-week funding measure that they passed as long as it was “clean.”

But that unraveled Thursday when House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters that Trump said during a closed-door meeting that he wouldn’t sign the bill.