House Republicans have expressed concern that divisions within the party could force the GOP to reach across the aisle in order to pass a stopgap spending bill before the deadline to avert a shutdown, Axios reports.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview on Wednesday that he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently met and agreed to work together to pass a stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution.
"Speaker McCarthy and I met a few weeks back and we agreed we should do what's called a CR — in other words, a congressional resolution where you just extend the existing funding for a few months so we could work this out," Schumer said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "And I thought that was a good sign. But I would say this: Our Republican colleagues in the House need to follow the lead of their Republican colleagues in the Senate and work in a bipartisan way."
But one Republican legislator, who was not named, told Axios this week that passing a spending bill could be "a cluster" due to infighting among members of the House GOP.
McCarthy previously suggested passing a short-term spending bill to keep the government from shutting down on Sept. 30, but the unnamed GOP lawmaker told Axios "I'm not sure we have the votes" for a continuing resolution to extend the existing budget.
The legislator added that the GOP "would likely needs Ds," referring to House Democrats, and predicting that some Republicans will go "nuts because it's going to be [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi's budget."