Mike Johnson ‘confident’ government funding bill will pass in race to avoid shutdown – US politics live | US Congress

There appears to have been an unseemly physical confrontation between former speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett in a hallway outside the House chamber.

According to Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s chair last month, the altercation came as he was giving a TV interview to Claudia Grisales of NPR.

Burchett told CNN:

She was asking me a question and at that time I got elbowed in the back, and it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. I turned back and there was Kevin.

I chased after him, and of course these guys, as I’ve stated many times, he’s a bully with a $17m security detail. He’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his Mama’s skirt.

McCarthy, according to the network, vehemently denies he assaulted anybody. Grisales, however, tweeted what “CNN calls a “play-by-play” of the incident.

“Burchett’s back was to McCarthy and his detail walking by in the hallway, then the lunge. Burchett responded jokingly as McCarthy kept walking, ‘Sorry Kevin didn’t mean to elbow’, then seriously yelled, ‘why’d you elbow me in the back Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?’ Grisales wrote.

“Burchett then looked back at me and said, ‘jerk’ referring to McCarthy. I asked if he had done that before, Burchett said ‘no.’ That’s when the chase ensued. Burchett took off after McCarthy and his detail. I chased behind with my mic.

“[Burchett] yelled after catching up to McCarthy, ‘Hey Kevin, why’d you walk behind me and elbow me in the back?’ KM: ‘I didn’t elbow you in the back.’ Burchett: ‘You got no guts, you did so, …the reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that…’

“Burchett tells me that’s the first point of ‘communication’ with McCarthy since Burchett voted for McCarthy’s ouster as speaker last month: ‘That’s just it’ for communication since ouster vote, ‘He’s just a jerk. He’s just a childish little…’”

Burchett told CNN:

There are 435 congressmen. I was one of the eight that voted against him. That hallway, there’s plenty of room, you can walk four side by side. He chose to do what he did.

Joe Biden has unveiled a $6bn effort to bolster climate resilience across the country as his administration released on Tuesday the government’s fifth annual national climate assessment.

“It’s most comprehensive assessment on state climate change in the history of America. And it matters. This assessment shows us, in clear scientific terms, that climate change is impacting all regions, all sectors in the United States,” the president said.

“It shows that communities across America are taking more action than ever to reduce climate risk. [But] it warns that more action is still badly needed. We can’t be complacent.”

The department of energy, he said, will spend $3.9bn from the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, to strengthen and modernize the nation’s electric grid.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will use $2bn from the Inflation Reduction Act to support community-driven projects that deploy clean energy, strengthen climate resilience, and build community capacity to respond to environmental and climate justice challenges, Biden added.

Other money will go to drought resilience projects and reducing flood risk in areas across the nation. Details are in the White House statement here.

Biden also used his address to take a swipe at Donald Trump:

It’s a simple fact that there are a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Maga [make America great again] Republican leaders who still deny climate change, still deny it’s a problem.

My predecessor [Trump] and much of the Maga Republican Party feel very strongly. But anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future. The impacts we’re seeing are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious and more costly.

None of this is inevitable

Mike Johnson has just been speaking at the Capitol about his funding bill proposal to keep the government open, which faces a House vote at about 4.20pm Tuesday.

The Republican speaker says his “clean” spending bill, excluding money for any other measures, is the best way forward, and a shutdown “would unduly harm the American people”:

We have governed by omnibus bills right before Christmas, it is a terrible way to run a railroad and the reason that we’re in such trouble with our with our federal debt is because Congress is addicted, obsessed with this deficit spending.

It took decades to get into this mess, right? I’ve been at the job less than three weeks. I can’t turn an aircraft carrier overnight. But this is a very important first step to get us to the next stage so that we can change how Washington works.

Johnson says he’s confident his two-tier bill – funding certain chunks of government operations separately until January and February – will pass:

We are on an unsustainable track with our debt. There’s no two ways about it. And I think everybody recognizes that we’ve got to get down to the matter of the heart of this, to change the way we do business.

Part of the reason I’m confident about this is I’ve been drinking from Niagara Falls for the last three weeks. This will allow everybody to go home for a couple of days for Thanksgiving, everybody to cool off.

Members have been here for 10 weeks. This place is a pressure cooker. So I think everybody can go home, we can come back, reset, we’re going to get our group together, we’re going to map out a plan to fight for those principles.

He’s also urging congress and the White House to pass aid for Israel, by way of supplemental appropriations bills. “We want to make it absolutely clear where America stands in that fight,” he said.

Chris Michael

An attorney for Donald Trump has told prosecutors in Georgia that one of the former president’s top aides told her in December 2020 that Trump was “not going to leave” the White House “under any circumstances”, despite having lost the election to Joe Biden.

The revelation from Jenna Ellis came during an interview with the Georgia district attorney’s office in Fulton County. Ellis is cooperating as part of a plea agreement in the Georgia election interference case against Trump and various allies.

Sections of the video recordings were published on Monday by ABC News and the Washington Post, along with excerpts from interviews with lawyer Sidney Powell and two other defendants who have reached plea agreements in the case in exchange for testifying.

Ellis said the longtime Trump aide – his deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino – told her “the boss” would refuse to cede power. She also alluded to two other “relevant” instances for the case but did not disclose them in the video, apparently prevented from doing so by attorney-client privilege.

Ellis described Scavino’s response to her scepticism that Trump had any more legal avenues left to challenge his election loss, saying: “And he said to me, you know, in a kind of excited tone: ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave.’”.

Read the full story:

It was a poison chalice for Kevin McCarthy, but his successor as House speaker Mike Johnson is calculating that working with Democrats to get a government spending bill through the chamber today will have a better personal outcome.

There were growing indications last night and Tuesday morning that Republican Johnson’s CR (continuing resolution) bill to keep the government funded beyond 17 November will be able to reach the 290-vote threshold it needs to pass.

That doesn’t mean his unconventional two-tier proposal – funding chunks of government operations separately until January and February – is wildly popular. The Republican House Freedom Caucus, which has roughly 50 members, announced on Tuesday morning it opposed the plan. And several senior Democrats are apprehensive, Maryland congressman Steny Hoyer calling it “a bad process” according to Punchbowl.

Johnson’s decision to introduce the bill under what’s known as suspension of rules, bypassing traditional procedural hurdles but requiring a two-thirds majority to pass, also indicates underwhelming support from the Republican side.

Yet the speaker is sensing that enough members on either side want to get a deal done, and that there’s still enough goodwill from his own ranks to avoid McCarthy’s fate: his predecessor was ousted from the speaker’s chair by angry Republicans last month three days after his own stopgap spending bill passed with Democratic support.

Crucially, Tuesday’s statement from the House Freedom Caucus included the line: “… we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson”.

The wider Republican House membership was also meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss its strategy.

We don’t know the likely timing of the vote yet, but we’ll bring you developments as they happen

While we wait, have a read of my colleague Chris Stein’s explanation of Johnson’s government spending bill here:

It’s a big day, and the first real test, for Republican new House speaker Mike Johnson as the chamber votes on his proposal to keep the government funded.

He’ll need the help of Democrats to get his CR (continuing resolution) bill through and ensure there’s money to keep the wheels turning after 17 November. It’s an issue that helped topple Johnson’s predecessor Kevin McCarthy: Republicans angry at his consorting with the “enemy” to get a stopgap funding bill passed in September ousted him three days later.

There is, however, growing confidence that Johnson’s two-tier, “clean” CR bill (dealing only with government funding) will find enough favor on both sides of the chamber to reach the 290 votes it needs to pass.

Senior Democrats don’t love it, but also don’t want to shut down the government heading into the Thanksgiving break. House Republicans meet this morning to plan their strategy. Either way, it’ll make for a lively day.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• Hardline Alabama Republican senator Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of military appointments over the Pentagon’s abortion policies for service members faces its Waterloo. The Senate’s rules committee takes up a measure to circumvent his obstruction and approve the appointments en bloc.

• Senior politicians from both parties will join an estimated 60,000 people at a March for Israel rally at the Capitol scheduled for 1pm ET. Speakers include Johnson and Democrats Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and Chuck Schumer, majority leader in the Senate.

• We’re expecting to hear Joe Biden deliver remarks about his climate agenda a little after 10am ET. Later, the president will fly to California to join Vice-President Kamala Harris at a campaign event this evening.

• There’s no formal White House briefing today, but press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and strategic communications coordinator to the National Security Council John Kirby will “gaggle” with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the west coast.