House Speaker Mike Johnson, a conservative Louisiana Republican, told Fox News he would be willing to extend government funding into January with another stopgap bill as Congress stares down a looming deadline.
Lawmakers have until Nov. 17 to reach a budget agreement to keep the federal government running or reach another temporary bill. Johnson told Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures that agreeing to another stopgap bill “gets us beyond the end of the year push.”
Johnson said the first priority is to get the government funded. “We have to finish the appropriations process,” he said. Congress will take up three appropriations bills this week after passing a water and energy bill last week, he added.
He favors a situation where “if there indeed has to be a stopgap funding measure, that we would do that until Jan. 15,” Johnson said.
The Sunday morning talk shows also focused on the escalating conflict in the Middle East, where Israel is expanding its presence on the ground in Gaza, saying it was entering a second phase of the war with Hamas.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged on CNN’s State of the Union that thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the continuing bombardment and said the U.S. stands firmly “for the proposition that all measures should be taken that are reasonable and responsible to protect the lives of civilians.”
Sullivan said President Joe Biden is planning to speak with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later today. Negotiations to free hostages from Gaza are ongoing, he added, and there is still a pathway to getting their release despite the escalating ground attack.
Efforts to usher 600 Americans stuck in Gaza and other foreign nationals to Egypt are also ongoing, Sullivan said. “This is an equal priority to us as getting the hostages out,” he said.
People are breaking into aid warehouses in Gaza for food and personal hygiene products, the Associated Press reported, citing a U.N. agency. Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll among Palestinians has reached more than 8,000 people, many of them women and children, the report said.
Write to Liz Moyer at [email protected]
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