Congress has less than three days to avoid a government shutdown

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said a government shutdown would be particularly difficult for federal contractors who are not guaranteed back pay.

While noting that many federal workers would eventually receive money if the government shuts down and later reopens, "there are many people who are working who will not get back pay, including employees of federal contractors," she told MSNBC's Chris Hayes.

"The cafeteria workers are contract workers, and these workers are terrified, because they may not get back pay," she said.

A growing Republican divide over continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine threatens the prospects of Congress’ passing additional money to help the country defend its sovereignty against Russia.

Despite the broad bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate supporting continued funding, the topic has become a central sticking point in the fight over a looming government shutdown. And hopes are dimming in the GOP-controlled House, where Speaker McCarthy faces growing pressure from hard-liners who want to cut off Ukraine aid and threaten to overthrow him if he fails to meet their demands.

An amendment to the defense funding bill by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to prohibit all military assistance to Ukraine won 93 Republican votes yesterday, as 126 Republicans and all 213 Democrats voted against it. That’s up from 70 Republicans who voted for a similar measure by Gaetz in July.

A separate amendment by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., to slash $300 million in arms assistance for Ukraine — an allocation that has been the status quo since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 — got 104 GOP votes, with 117 Republicans joining 213 Democrats to vote it down.

Read the full story here.

McCarthy told reporters tonight that he talked to Biden about establishing a commission to study and find ways to reduce the national debt.

The speaker also said he met yesterday with House Democrats, as well as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top GOP appropriator in the Senate, about adding the commission to a short-term deal to keep the government open.

“A number of members have been pushing the debt commission as a way we could handle, especially our big crisis that we have going on long term. ... I think this will be a very bipartisan committee," McCarthy said.

Asked whether the House will pass the four Republican government funding bills it plans to take up late tonight, he said, "We'll see."

The bills would only partly fund the government and would not avoid a shutdown, and they are dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

McCarthy also responded to the House Freedom Caucus’s letter demanding answers about the plan to pass more conservative funding bills. "If they send me a letter, it’s not for me, it’s for you," McCarthy told reporters about the ultraconservative group. "They’re trying to make news.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., reiterated on X that he would agree to speed up Senate votes on a short-term bipartisan deal to avoid a shutdown — but only if it removes funding for Ukraine.

"To avoid a government shutdown, I will consent to an expedited vote on a clean CR without Ukraine aid on it. If leadership insists on funding another country’s government at the expense of our own government, all blame rests with their intransigence," he wrote.

Paul has been saying for weeks that he will not support quick passage of the Senate's CR if Ukraine funding is included. Otherwise, objections from him and a small group of conservative Republicans could push final passage of the bill into Monday, almost guaranteeing a government shutdown will happen.

While including aid money for Ukraine has considerable bipartisan support in both chambers, a vocal minority has made including it in any stopgap government funding measure a major sticking point.

The Treasury Department has sent out its plans for a shutdown, highlighting ways it would affect everyday people.

Among those impacts: Taxpayer calls to the IRS would not be answered. "Outside of filing season, for the month of October, the IRS answers approximately 46,000 phone calls per day," the Treasury said.

"Refunds will not be processed except in cases where e-filed, error-free refunds can be direct deposited automatically," which could affect up to "10.5 million individual 1040 filers on extension through the Oct. 16 deadline," the agency said.

"Most core tax administration functions will stop," it said, and "approximately two-thirds of IRS employees — about 60,000 of 90,000 staff" members would be furloughed.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters this afternoon that the caucus has "extremely strong feelings" about not saving McCarthy if a motion to vacate comes to the floor.

Jayapal said members feel that McCarthy is untrustworthy and, because he has already “handed the gavel to MTG and Matt Gaetz," there can be no worse alternative. ("MTG" is a reference to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.)

She added that Democrats not in the progressive caucus have expressed similar hesitations, but she did not go into specifics.

If the CPC were to vote to save McCarthy, either by voting present or voting to table the motion, they would do so only in exchange for a power-sharing agreement. Jayapal cautioned that that is hypothetical, adding that members want to address House rules before any deal is set.

“The main point is we don't trust Kevin McCarthy, and we shouldn’t. And so, if there needs to be a deal, it should be baked into the rules of the House," Jayapal said.

Jayapal did say a vacant chair during a shutdown would make it harder to open the government, but she added: "I think you have to look at, again, what drives people to recognize, what pushes those so-called moderate Republicans to recognize that they can't keep doing this? What pushes anybody to recognize that we do need to be able to govern and it is in their hands? What pushes people to say, well, we would embrace a power-sharing? I mean, it's got to be pretty bad to embrace that."

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican appropriator, told reporters that it's "impossible" to say whether Congress will resolve the government funding crisis or not.

“I think it’s impossible to predict whether we’re going to have a breakthrough or whether we’re going to have a short shutdown over the weekend or whether we’re going to be more serious trouble," she said.

Collins has been huddling with other Republican senators about adding some border security measures to their current bipartisan bill to keep the government open through Nov. 17 to try to win over House Republicans.

"We’re making progress. But there are a lot of different issues: Do we just increase funding for more agents and physical barriers, or do we try to get into policy changes?" she said.

Collins said she has been talking with some House appropriators but not with Speaker McCarthy. "Overwhelmingly people are for some kind of border security amendment. I had suggested that we’d put it in initially, but Sen. Schumer pushed back against doing that. So we’ll see. I mean, it seems to change very quickly over in the House. So who knows?”

The House Oversight Committee’s first hearing in its impeachment inquiry into President Biden has come to an end, with witnesses testifying that there is no evidence Biden committed a crime.

However, the Republican-selected witnesses did say more bank records are needed from Biden and his son Hunter to fully determine the next steps.

The White House continued to release statements today alleging that the House Republicans used the impeachment hearing to distract from the looming government shutdown.

“Today, House Republicans wasted hours peddling debunked lies, even as their own witnesses admitted there is no evidence that merits this baseless stunt. This flop was a failed effort to distract from their own chaos and inability to govern that is careening the country towards an unnecessary government shutdown that will hurt American families," White House spokesperson Sharon Yang said.

Congress is hurtling toward a government shutdown, with money set to run out in a little more than two days and no sign of a short-term funding deal between the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.

With time running short, the two chambers are moving in different directions and remain far from converging on a path to resolve their disputes.

The Senate has been slowly advancing a bipartisan stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, with overwhelming support in the chamber; it would fund the government at current levels through Nov. 17 and provide roughly $6 billion in aid for Ukraine and another $6 billion for disaster aid.

That bill is on a path to clear the Senate in the coming days as members negotiate to reach an agreement to vote quickly. But in the House, many Republicans have said they strongly oppose the bill.

Read the full story here.

Staffers running the House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden will continue to work in the case of a shutdown.

Congressional offices have a lot of latitude over what staff is considered essential — and Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have deemed their staffs on the Oversight and Judiciary committees essential workers, NBC News confirmed.

Comer said his staff members are “fired up and going to keep working.”

Unlike in previous shutdowns, the committees would still be able to issue subpoenas, according to the House Administration Committee.

Their staffing decisions aren't outliers, however. Official guidance gives pretty broad latitude to members about which workers can continue working, and most offices deem a wide segment of their employees as essential.

Like other federal workers who work through a shutdown, however, they wouldn't be paid until after the government reopened.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have played a role in damaging the nation's debt and shared "blame" for a possible government shutdown.

"We don't get any answers because Joe Biden hides in his basement and won't answer as to why he's raising the debt the way he's done, and Donald Trump he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs, and won't show up here to answer your questions like all the rest of us," Christie said at last night's GOP presidential debate.

"If the government closes, it is to the blame of everyone in Washington, D.C., who has failed to do their job and just plays to the grandstand," he added.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters today that he has “no trouble voting for border security” if it’s added to a government funding deal depending “on the details.”

Kaine spoke with reporters about the closed-door Democratic lunch where he said lawmakers discussed the looming government shutdown.

The Senate is currently working to pass a bipartisan bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, that would fund the government through Nov. 17, but time to pass it before the government's shutdown cutoff on Sunday is running out.

“If we produce a bill, we’ll do the best bill we can, and we’ll send it over there," he said, referring to the House. "And we’ll send it with a big bipartisan vote."

If the government shuts down this weekend, up to 4 million federal workers could go without pay. Members of Congress, however, will keep receiving their paychecks no matter how long a shutdown lasts.

That has prompted some members, like freshman Republican Rep. Brandon Williams of New York, to announce that he has “directed that the House suspend my pay to share the burden of a potential government shutdown.” 

Others have gone a step further, like Democratic Rep. Angie Craig from Minnesota, who introduced the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your (MCCARTHY) Shutdown Act. Craig said this bill would withhold pay for members of Congress during a shutdown.

While these efforts may please constituents, the reality is that members of Congress will continue being paid whether they want to or not.

The Congressional Research Service writes that members' salaries are funded through a permanent appropriations account, not the annual spending bills Congress passes. And according to the 27th Amendment, any law “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives” cannot take effect until after another congressional election has passed.

Most senators and representatives are paid $174,000 a year, which hasn’t changed since 2009. The speaker of the House's salary is $223,500, while the majority and minority leaders of both chambers, as well as the president pro tempore of the Senate — currently Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington — all make $193,400.

The head of the NAACP sent an open letter to McCarthy forcefully calling on him to "swiftly resolve the latest manufactured budget crisis and avoid a needless government shutdown that would disproportionately harm millions of Black Americans."

In the letter, obtained by NBC News on Thursday before it is distributed, NAACP president and chief executive Derrick Johnson demands that Congress pass a continuing resolution that "rejects unnecessary and draconian cuts" to federal social programs and services.

Johnson said a shutdown would "risk disrupting" federal programs that aid Black families and entrepreneurs, including Pell Grants, access to early childhood education through Head Start, nutrition assistance, SBA small business loans, HUD housing assistance and other services.

"Walking away from this deal and opting instead to harm millions of Black families is not an option," Johnson said. "We will not forget your failure to act on behalf of the American people to placate a handful of extremists."

Twenty-seven House Freedom Caucus members sent a letter to Speaker McCarthy this afternoon demanding information on the path forward for passing government funding bills.

“No Member of Congress can or should be expected to consider supporting a stop-gap funding measure without answers to these reasonable questions,” they write.

The six questions included in the letter focus on the plan for passing single-subject spending bills.

In particular, the caucus asked what McCarthy's plans were to implement additional spending cuts to reach a topline discretionary budget of $1.526 trillion, as "agreed upon by the House Republican Committee last week."

The letter also demanded McCarthy "publicly refute and reject the Schumer-McConnell Continuing Resolution."

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the agency is assessing how to handle a possible government shutdown but warned that a funding lapse would be broadly disruptive.

“If House Republicans force a shutdown, it will have devastating consequences for NASA, families across the country, and America’s global competitiveness,” he said in a statement provided to NBC News.

Agency officials said they don’t yet know how specific departments and programs might be affected by a shutdown, including a planned event on Oct. 11 to unveil newly retrieved samples from an asteroid and ongoing preparations for NASA’s return-to-the-moon initiative.

Critical operations, however, will go on, according to Nelson.

“NASA will maintain the people to protect life and property — operational missions, such as satellites, landers, and rovers, as well as the International Space Station and its crew,” he said.

The House Oversight Committee's first hearing in its impeachment inquiry into President Biden is still chugging along nearly five hours later.

Meanwhile, Congress has yet to find a shutdown solution.

The White House has continued to send nearly identical statements every 30 minutes pointing to the ticking clock of the nearing shutdown cutoff.

“There are 57 hours and 25 minutes until the government shuts down because of extreme House Republicans’ chaos and inability to govern. ... Nothing can distract from that,” White House spokesperson Sharon Yang said in the latest statement.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., briefed GOP members on border talks at the party's lunch today, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said leaving the room.

Thune has been huddling with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and others about a plan to try to add border security funding to the Senate's short-term bill to keep the government open through Nov. 17. They hope that funding would attract the support of House Republicans and avoid a shutdown.

The White House said that a government shutdown would force FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) to delay about 2,000 long-term recovery projects helping communities rebuild from natural disasters such as tornados and hurricanes.

The DRF is "now forced to prioritize only immediate lifesaving and life sustaining operations," the White House said in a press release.

The White House released a state-by-state breakdown of how many disaster recovery projects would be delayed. Every state, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, appears to have projects that will be delayed, except for Wyoming. Topping the list are Florida, Louisiana and New York, with more than 200 projects delayed per state, according to the White House.

"The reason these disaster recovery and preparedness priorities are now at risk: extreme House Republicans’ relentless efforts to slash funding for vital programs rather than work in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and address emergency needs for the American people," the White House said in the release.

The White House has been branding the looming shutdown as an "Extreme Republican Shutdown," arguing that while the Senate is making "bipartisan progress towards keeping the government open and making a down payment on disaster relief funding," House Republicans are "playing partisan games with peoples' lives."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Senate Republicans are holding conversations about trying to add some border security funding to the Senate's short-term funding bill (or "CR") in the hopes that will be enough to get House Republicans on board. "Hopefully that will keep the government open," he said.

Pairing border security money and Ukraine funding “makes a lot of sense," Graham said, but said he'd support a CR without the border funding lasting approximately 30-45 days to avoid a shutdown.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he agreed with the House that there's a need for border security generally, but he emphasized that a government shutdown is "bad policy and bad politics."

"I don’t believe a government shutdown benefits anybody. It actually costs more money," he said. "And when the government reopens, you have the same problems to deal with that caused you to shut it down."

Cornyn said he still thinks it's possible McCarthy will find a solution. "I’ve been very impressed with Speaker McCarthy’s ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat, particularly on the debt ceiling matter. And so, I’m not going to underestimate his ability to do so here," he said.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the CR is an emergency bill — not a place to get into a fight about the border. "We’ve had an ample opportunity to discuss immigration and we do moving forward, but to bend the whole future of the federal government on reaching an agreement on a topic that has eluded us for years, I don’t think is a fair deal," he said.

Said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.: "The best way to provide border security is to fund the government."

A government shutdown could delay hundreds of real estate transactions each day and cause a shock to the industry because some homebuyers will be unable to secure flood insurance, industry and flood experts said.

The authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program expires alongside the government’s funding at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. If lawmakers do not reauthorize the program, about 1,300 property closings each day could be delayed, according to estimates from the National Association of Home Builders. 

“Closings are going to stop” in flood-prone areas, said Jim Tobin, the organization’s chief executive officer. “It’s going to have some lasting effects, really putting a lot of real estate transactions on hold for a time.” 

Read the full story here.

The Senate voted 76-22 to advance its bill to keep the government open through Nov. 17. This procedural vote gets senators one step closer to passing the bill, with the next vote planned for first thing on Saturday.

Final passage would come after that, but it may not happen in time to avoid a shutdown early Sunday morning. That's because all 100 senators need to agree for the Senate to move quickly and Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., have said they won't agree to speed things up over their objections to the bill.

It's likely the Senate won't finish this bill until Monday unless Republicans lift their objections to moving faster.

Even if they do get it done in time, it's really unclear at this point if House Republicans will take it up; many have already indicated they would reject the Senate CR in its current form.

There are conversations happening among Senate Republicans to propose an amendment to the CR that would add some kind of border-related money or policies, the details of which are still being worked out. The idea among Republicans is that would help the bill be more palatable to House Republicans.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who plans to vote no on a continuing resolution to temporarily avoid a shutdown, said the probability of a shutdown is “very high.” And he mocked Congress for frantically trying to solve the funding issue at the last minute, even though the Sept. 30 deadline has been known since last December.

“We’re really busting our ass. We’re working at 10 o’clock in the morning and we’re going to take two hours for lunch and then come here at 4 o’clock with our Brooks Brothers suit thrown over our should and our sleeves rolled up and our collars undone, and tell the American people we’re working — they know it’s not true,” Burchett said. “So, I really don’t have a lot of faith in this.”

We’d like to hear from you about how you’re preparing for a possible government shutdown, whether you might be out of work or feel the effects of shuttered services.

Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.

If the federal government shuts down on Sunday, numerous publicly funded agencies will stop work and their employees won’t be paid, but Social Security checks will still go out.

Social Security is considered a mandatory program and it isn’t funded by the shorter-term appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed by the president. That means its operations and funding don’t stop when the government shuts down.

That’s important for a large portion of Americans, as about 67 million people are currently receiving monthly Social Security benefits, according to the Social Security Administration. Those benefits primarily go to retirees, but also to people with disabilities as well as dependents of deceased beneficiaries. 

Medicare and Veterans Affairs benefits also continue being distributed during a shutdown.

Read the full story here.

During last night's Republican presidential debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with a government shutdown looming, hit President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for what he called "reckless" spending habits.

"The people in Washington are shutting down the American dream with their reckless behavior," DeSantis said. "They borrowed, they printed, they spent, and now you're paying more for everything. They are the reason for that."

"As your president, when they send me a bloating spending bill that's going to cause your prices to go up, I'm gonna take out this veto pen and I'm gonna send it right back to them," he said.

Government agencies are notifying their employees that a shutdown could become a reality on Sunday if Congress fails to pass a government funding bill.

One e-mail obtained by NBC News that was disseminated among workers at the Social Security Administration said that during a funding lapse, "designated, pre-notified Social Security Administration (SSA) employees would be temporarily furloughed."

It then said that furloughed and excepted employees would receive retroactive pay once a shutdown ends.

"We understand uncertainty can be unsettling. Thank you for your continued dedication as we move through this process," the e-mail said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said at his weekly press conference on Thursday morning that the only way to prevent a government shutdown is for House GOP leaders to bring to the floor a bipartisan short-term funding bill that is expected to be passed in the Senate.

"Extreme MAGA Republicans face a clear choice: put the bipartisan continuing resolution on the floor of the House for an up-or-down vote and we can avoid the extreme MAGA Republican shutdown and end this nightmare," Jeffries said, "Or fail to put the bipartisan continuing resolution sent over from the Senate on the floor of the House for an up or down vote because your objective, apparently as extreme MAGA Republicans, is to shut the government down."

Jeffries said that House Democrats would support a short-term funding bill that includes funding to help Americans affected by natural disasters and weather events and funding to keep helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Both are included in the Senate bill, which would fund the government through Nov. 17.

Asked if Democrats would support a continuing resolution, or CR, that has a border security component — if it's passed by the Senate — Jeffries didn't give a clear answer. He only suggested that it should be based on requests submitted to Congress by Biden. (The Senate bill does not currently include additional border funding.)

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., expressed frustration that House Republicans were pulling Ukraine aid out of their defense funding bill.

“We’re gonna do a split vote, I guess, tonight, so we’re gonna pull the pull the Ukraine stuff out and vote on it separately. Which you know irritates a lot of us because we voted on it yesterday, on amendments,” Bacon said.

Bacon is referring to an amendment from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to strip out Ukraine aid that was overwhelmingly defeated last night. Just 93 members of the House voted to axe the aid money, all Republicans, but late last night, the powerful House Rules Committee met to strip the Ukraine funding out anyway.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., confirmed that he stood up during this morning's GOP conference meeting to ask if McCarthy was paying influencers to criticize him online.

"I asked him whether or not he was paying those influencers to post negative things about me online," Gaetz told reporters after, confirming that McCarthy responded that he wouldn’t waste time on Gaetz.

Asked if it was time to start the process of forcing a vote to remove McCarthy, as he’s repeatedly threatened, Gaetz said right now the House is working on getting single-subject spending bills passed. Those bills would keep part of the government open, focusing on defense and national security, but they include deep spending cuts that the Democratic Senate will not accept.

The Senate is holding a procedural vote to advance their short-term bill that would keep the government funded through Nov. 17.

But it's still not clear if the bill, known as a CR, can pass the House, with many conservatives saying they would not support it.

Even if the bill passes the Senate later this week, there may not be enough time to avoid a shutdown Sunday morning. The Senate needs the unanimous consent of all 100 members to pass something quickly and they don't have it right now. Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., have said they won't agree to speedy passage over objections to the bill — Paul because he opposes Ukraine aid and Scott because he wants more disaster funding.

House Republicans met this morning at the Capitol Hill Club, where Speaker McCarthy’s message was to pass a short-term spending bill (or "CR") to prevent the House from being “held hostage” by the Senate, according to Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C.

Norman would not commit to voting for the House Republican CR, saying he needs to see the final number. “The devil’s in the details,” he said. “But I agree with getting something to them.”

On timing for a CR, Norman said text could be out late tonight or tomorrow morning.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said McCarthy will need to work with Democrats at some point. “I believe he will, he will at some point.”

The White House put out a statement regarding the House Oversight Committee's first impeachment hearing into Biden this morning, pointing instead to the looming government shutdown.

"There are 61 hours and 25 minutes until the government shuts down because of extreme House Republicans’ chaos and inability to govern. The consequences for the American people will be very damaging — from lost jobs, to troops working without pay, to jeopardizing important efforts to fight fentanyl, deliver disaster relief, provide food assistance, and more," White House spokesperson Sharon Yang said in a statement. "Nothing can distract from that."

Yang has been sending nearly identical statements with a shutdown clock ticking down every half hour since the hearing started.

The House will vote today on four individual appropriations bills that would fund part of the government, but that won’t happen until later tonight.

The Pentagon appropriations bill had initially included $300 million in Ukraine aid, but Speaker McCarthy has stripped that money out due to objections from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and other conservatives. The Ukraine aid will instead be voted on as part of a separate, supplemental funding bill and the House will vote on the rule for that supplemental at 4 p.m. ET.

At 10:30 p.m. ET, the House will vote to pass the four appropriations bills funding the Defense, Homeland Security and Agriculture departments, as well as State Department and foreign operations. Those bills all include conservative spending cuts that the Democratic-led Senate will not accept.

McCarthy still hopes to bring up a conservative funding measure that would keep the whole government open temporarily on Friday.

House offices received guidance from the House Administration Committee on Wednesday about what would happen if Congress is unable to pass government funding and the government shuts down on Sunday morning.

It says, for example, that "neither essential nor furloughed employees are authorized to receive compensation during a lapse in government funding." However, federal law now requires that those employees receive retroactive pay following a shutdown.

While Capitol Police will continue to work during a shutdown, residential security for lawmakers cannot be reimbursed by the sergeant at arms, and members "will have to incur the expense and wait to seek reimbursement until government funding is restored or risk a lapse in service," the guidance says.

Interns both paid and unpaid would also be affected by a shutdown because they perform temporary duties, and therefore would not be among the essential employees who report to work, the guidance says. It says that staff can volunteer to be furloughed, but may be required to report to work anyway. Offices can also rotate employees for furlough if they perform similar jobs.

Guidance from the committee says that House staff can take another job while being furloughed, but notes that the staffer remains a government employee and must be available to return to work when called back by a supervisor.

Public tours of the Capitol through the Capitol Vistors Center would also be suspended during a shutdown.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a Thursday morning interview that he won't accept the Senate's proposed short-term funding bill because he said it doesn't include provisions to address border security.

"Remember, the Senate is their own body, the House is their own body. It’s not ours to surrender," McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC. "What happens is when we pass a bill, and they pass a bill, we find where we have differences and come to a conclusion."

McCarthy dodged a question about why he won't bring a bipartisan measure from the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus to the House floor that would provide short-term government funding with a border security component.

While McCarthy said in the interview that "we are stronger as a Republican conference when we work as one," he also acknowledged that he has been struggling to unite his members.

"The challenge is I've got members who have held us up since the summer, not to be able to bring our appropriation bills up. Otherwise, we probably would have them all done," he said. "I’ve got members who will not vote to have a stop-gap measure to fund the government. I've got members who say they’ll never vote for an omnibus."

McCarthy declined to answer repeated questions on the odds of a shutdown.

"I think we can work through the weekend. I think we can figure this out," he said. "I don't give up if the clock runs out — I'm OK playing in overtime."

As Republicans and Democrats work to avert a shutdown this weekend, members of the House will be attending a high-profile hearing on the GOP's impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has said the hearing will focus on “the basis of an impeachment inquiry” and present evidence Republicans say they’ve uncovered about “Biden’s knowledge of and role in his family’s domestic and international business practices.”

The 10 a.m. hearing, the first of the impeachment inquiry, will feature testimony from legal and financial experts and comes as Republicans pursue bank records of the president and his son Hunter Biden.

Read the full story here.

The House GOP conference is meeting at the Capitol Hill Club at 9 a.m., usually an indication that members are talking about something campaign-related.

It's unclear if the looming shutdown is a main topic on their list today, or if they'll be discussing last night's GOP debate. But the funding deadline is bound to come up with just a few days left to act.