Politics

(Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump plans to give a speech in Detroit on Sept. 27 to a crowd of union workers, skipping the second Republican presidential debate, an aide said on Monday, and instead inserting himself into a dispute between striking workers and America’s leading automakers.

The prime time speech is expected to be delivered to auto workers and other blue collar union members, the aide added. The speech comes as Trump has been harshly critical of President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle policies and urged autoworkers to back his candidacy.

The event will mark the second time Trump has skipped a Republican primary presidential debate, in a race where despite his myriad legal problems, Trump leads his nearest rival by nearly 50 percentage points, according to the most recent opinion polls.

Trump’s speech signals an effort by his team to look beyond his party’s White House nominating contest and onto a likely general election re-match with Biden next November.

The speech to union members will be part of an intense campaign by Trump to win back some of the working class voters who defected to Biden in his 2020 victory against Trump.

The United Auto Workers union began a strike last week against the three biggest U.S. auto manufacturers over pay and other benefits, a labor dispute that could pose significant political danger for Biden.

While Biden has touted his support of unions for decades, there is anger among some rank-and-file auto workers that he has not done enough to stand up to the manufacturers and their executives amid huge industry profits.

Trump is seeking to exploit the dispute, and will try to persuade auto workers and other union members that he will be on their side if he becomes president again.

Biden’s campaign on Monday harshly criticized Trump for his policies ahead of the speech.

“Instead of standing with workers, Trump cut taxes for the super-wealthy while auto companies shuttered their doors and shipped American jobs overseas,” Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “No self-serving photo op can erase Trump’s four years of abandoning union workers and standing with his ultra-rich friends.”

Trump has said recently that Biden is “waging war” on the auto industry through electric vehicle mandates and has said the UAW should endorse him.

The current strike also has profound geographical resonance for next year’s general election because many of the affected workers are based in three key Midwestern battleground states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – where next year’s presidential contest could be decided.

Trump skipped the first Republican presidential debate in Wisconsin last month. The second debate is being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California, about 45 miles (72 km) north of Los Angeles.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Tim Reid; additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)

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By David Shepardson and Tim Reid

(Reuters) -Former U.S. President Donald Trump plans to give a speech in Detroit on Sept. 27 to a crowd of union workers, skipping the second Republican presidential debate, an aide said on Monday, and instead inserting himself into a dispute between striking workers and America’s leading automakers.

The prime time speech is expected to be delivered to auto workers and other blue collar union members, the aide added. The speech comes as Trump has been harshly critical of President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle policies and urged autoworkers to back his candidacy.

The event will mark the second time Trump has skipped a Republican primary presidential debate, in a race where despite his myriad legal problems, Trump leads his nearest rival by nearly 50 percentage points, according to the most recent opinion polls.

Trump’s speech signals an effort by his team to look beyond his party’s White House nominating contest and onto a likely general election re-match with Biden next November.

The speech to union members will be part of an intense campaign by Trump to win back some of the working class voters who defected to Biden in his 2020 victory against Trump.

The United Auto Workers union began a strike last week against the three biggest U.S. auto manufacturers over pay and other benefits, a labor dispute that could pose significant political danger for Biden.

While Biden has touted his support of unions for decades, there is anger among some rank-and-file auto workers that he has not done enough to stand up to the manufacturers and their executives amid huge industry profits.

Trump is seeking to exploit the dispute, and will try to persuade auto workers and other union members that he will be on their side if he becomes president again.

Biden’s campaign on Monday harshly criticized Trump for his policies ahead of the speech.

“Instead of standing with workers, Trump cut taxes for the super-wealthy while auto companies shuttered their doors and shipped American jobs overseas,” Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “No self-serving photo op can erase Trump’s four years of abandoning union workers and standing with his ultra-rich friends.”

Trump has said recently that Biden is “waging war” on the auto industry through electric vehicle mandates and has said the UAW should endorse him.

The current strike also has profound geographical resonance for next year’s general election because many of the affected workers are based in three key Midwestern battleground states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – where next year’s presidential contest could be decided.

Trump skipped the first Republican presidential debate in Wisconsin last month. The second debate is being held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California, about 45 miles (72 km) north of Los Angeles.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Tim Reid; additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)

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By Nate Raymond and David Thomas

(Reuters) – An Indiana judicial watchdog on Monday accused Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita of violating professional conduct rules while making statements about a doctor in the state who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio.

The complaint by the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission cited statements Rokita made on Fox News in July 2022 about Dr. Caitlin Bernard in a case that became a flashpoint in the debate over abortion access.

The commission’s move is the latest in a state whose highest court in June upheld a law banning nearly all abortions in the state. The Indiana Supreme Court is also the ultimate arbiter for any attorneys charged with misconduct by the commission.

Rokita, who opposes abortion, had opened an investigation into Bernard. During a show hosted by Fox’s Jesse Watters, he described her as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor – with a history of failure to report” child abuse cases.

The commission said those comments violated rules barring lawyers from making public statements with a substantial likelihood of “materially prejudicing” a case.

In a written response on Monday, Rokita said he was not required to maintain confidentiality in Bernard’s case, claiming she “violated her own duties of confidentiality by disclosing her patient’s condition.”

Rokita also questioned whether an Indiana confidentiality law invoked by the commission held any power over him, arguing that it only applies to an attorney general’s employees.

Bernard has said the Ohio child was referred to her three days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that guaranteed federal abortion rights. Ohio and other states quickly enforced strict limits on abortion in the wake of the ruling, sometimes without exceptions involving rape.

Rokita filed a medical licensing board complaint against Bernard in November, accusing her of violating her patient’s privacy rights and failing to immediately report child abuse to Indiana authorities.

The board in May reprimanded Bernard for speaking publicly about her patient’s condition in violation of privacy laws and fined her $3,000.

A lawyer for Bernard said she had no comment on the disciplinary case against Rokita.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond and David Thomas; Editing by David Bario and Sonali Paul)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy plunged forward on Monday into the biggest challenge of his eight months as the top Republican in Congress as he tries to avoid a government shutdown in less than two weeks without losing his speakership.

The Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate have until Sept. 30 to avoid the fourth partial government shutdown in a decade by passing spending legislation that President Joe Biden can sign into law to keep federal agencies afloat.

Republicans hold a 221-212 majority in the House that leaves McCarthy with little room to maneuver as he contends with opposition to the spending legislation from a small group of hardline conservatives. McCarthy told reporters he would bring two spending bills to the House floor for consideration this week, including a short-term stopgap measure, to see if they can pass.

“I will continue to fight all the way through,” said McCarthy, saying that a government shutdown would undermine U.S. security abroad and at the border with Mexico.

“We should show the American public our ideas and be able to pass them,” McCarthy added. “We’re going to be rational, responsible and reasonable.”

Political brinkmanship has begun to attract the attention of Wall Street, with rating agency Fitch citing repeated down-to-the-wire negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills when it downgraded U.S. debt rating to AA+ from its top-notch AAA designation earlier this year.

The log-jams are not limited to the House, as one hardline Senate Republican holdout, Tommy Tuberville, has blocked confirmation of hundreds of senior military officers due to his opposition to policies facilitating abortion access for female service members.

McCarthy has vowed to move forward this week on an $886 billion fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill, which stalled last week as hardliners withheld support to demand a top line fiscal 2024 spending level of $1.47 trillion – $120 billion less than what McCarthy and Biden agreed to in May.

That vote is expected on Wednesday. McCarthy said he will bring a stopgap measure – known as a “continuing resolution,” or CR – to the floor on Thursday. McCarthy can afford to lose no more than four Republican votes on partisan legislation. More than a half-dozen, including allies of former President Donald Trump, are vocally opposed to the continuing resolution.

The measure would keep federal agencies afloat until Oct. 31, giving Congress more time to enact full-scale appropriations for 2024. It would cut discretionary spending by about 8% for agencies outside of defense, veterans affairs and disaster relief and would impose certain restrictions on immigration and the border.

“This is a terrible bill, lumping the funding of disparate agencies of government into one BAD VOTE,” Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, a McCarthy opponent, said on social media.

Others complained that it would not cut spending by enough and would retain funding for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump with felonies over his handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“The Republican House is failing the American people again and pursuing a path of gamesmanship and circus,” Republican Representative Victoria Spartz said in a statement. “It is a shame that our weak speaker cannot even commit to having a commission to discuss our looming fiscal catastrophe.”

Neither bill is likely to win Democratic support and become law, even if it garnered enough Republican votes to pass the House.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, called the House Republican CR agreement “slapdash and reckless,” adding that a bipartisan continuing resolution is “the only answer for avoiding a government shutdown.”

‘HOLD THE LINE’

Some members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus are openly embracing a shutdown as a negotiating tactic to get their way on spending and conservative policy priorities.

“We have to hold the line,” Representative Chip Roy, a Freedom Caucus member, said last week.

Roy told a cheering conservative audience that a shutdown was now “almost” inevitable, and said conservatives must be prepared for “the fight coming in October.”

Unless the House can move forward on spending, Republican leaders said privately that they could be forced to move directly into negotiations with Senate Democrats on appropriations bills, circumventing hardliners.

The goal would be bipartisan legislation that could pass both chambers quickly and be signed into law by Biden. But the consequences could be dire for McCarthy, who is already staring down the threat of ouster from his post.

“It’d be the end of his speakership,” said Representative Ralph Norman, another Freedom Caucus member.

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone, Sandra Maler, Will Dunham and Shri Navaratnam)

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By Steve Holland

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden, who is raising cash for his re-election campaign while visiting New York for meetings with world leaders, acknowledged concerns about his age on Monday but said he was running because democracy was still at stake.

“A lot of people seem focused on my age. Well I get it. Believe me, I know better than anyone,” Biden, 80, told supporters at a fundraiser on Monday evening.

Biden defeated former President Donald Trump, a Republican who ran on a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan, in the 2020 election and may face him again next year; Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

“I’m running because democracy is at stake,” Biden said. “And let there be no question, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. And I will always defend, protect and fight for our democracy.”

Biden will address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday and is expected to press leaders to continue to support Ukraine in the war with Russia. The president has sought to rally the world to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump noted in an interview that aired on Sunday with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he had gotten along well with Putin, while saying he had also been hard on Russia as president.

“I will not side with dictators like Putin. Maybe Trump and his MAGA friends can bow down, but I won’t,” Biden said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Michael Perry)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing the biggest challenge of his eight months as the top Republican in the U.S. Congress, as he tries to muster his fractured caucus to avoid a government shutdown in less than two weeks without losing his speakership.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-led Senate have until Sept. 30 to avoid the U.S.’ fourth partial government shutdown in a decade by passing spending legislation that President Joe Biden can sign into law to keep federal agencies afloat.

But hardline activism on spending, policy and impeachment have split Republicans in the House and slowed the Senate’s path forward on approving bipartisan spending legislation.

Political brinkmanship has begun to attract the attention of Wall Street, with rating agency Fitch citing repeated down-to-the-wire negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills when it downgraded U.S. debt rating to AA+ from its top-notch AAA designation earlier this year.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries warned on Sunday that the situation amounts to a Republican “civil war.” The log-jams are not limited to the House, as one hardline Senate Republican holdout, Tommy Tuberville, has blocked confirmation of hundreds of senior military officers in a dispute over abortion access.

McCarthy said he hopes to move forward this week on an $886 billion fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill, which stalled last week as hardliners withheld support to demand a top line fiscal 2024 spending level of $1.47 trillion – $120 billion less than what McCarthy and Biden agreed to in May.

“I gave them an opportunity this weekend to try to work through this,” the California Republican said in a Sunday interview with the Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” program.

He said weekend negotiations with hardliners had made progress, but added: “We’ll bring it to the floor, win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for our military.”

Late on Sunday, hardline and moderate House Republicans reached agreement on a short-term stopgap spending bill, known as a “continuing resolution” or CR, that could help McCarthy move forward on the defense legislation.

The measure would keep federal agencies afloat until Oct 31, giving Congress more time to enact full-scale appropriations for 2024. However, it was not clear whether it would garner enough Republican support to pass the House.

But like the defense bill, which the White House has already threatened to veto, the CR is unlikely to succeed with Democrats and become law.

It would impose a spending cut of more than 8% on agencies other than the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs and it includes immigration and border security restrictions that Democrats reject.

With a 221-212 majority, McCarthy himself can afford to lose no more than four votes to pass legislation that Democrats unite in opposing.

He declared last week that “nobody wins” in a shutdown and pledged to keep the House in session through next weekend if necessary until legislation to fund the government is in place.

But some members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus are openly embracing a shutdown as a negotiating tactic to get their way on spending and conservative policy priorities.

“We have to hold the line,” Representative Chip Roy, a Freedom Caucus member, said late last week. He told a cheering conservative audience that a shutdown is now “almost” inevitable and said conservatives must be prepared for “the fight coming in October.”

Moderate Republicans predict that Congress will ultimately adhere to the spending level set by the Biden-McCarthy agreement.

“At the end of the day, that’s the only thing that’s going to be enacted into law,” said Representative Patrick McHenry, a close adviser to McCarthy.

Unless the House can move forward on spending, Republican leaders say privately that they could be forced to move directly into negotiations with Senate Democrats on appropriations bills, circumventing hardliners.

The goal would be bipartisan legislation that could pass both chambers quickly and be signed into law by Biden. But the consequences could be dire for McCarthy, who is already staring down the threat of ouster.

“It’d be the end of his speakership,” said Representative Ralph Norman, another Freedom Caucus member.

Other House Republicans fear that McCarthy’s decision to open an impeachment inquiry of Biden could make it harder to gain cooperation on spending from Democrats. The White House has blasted the probe as unsubstantiated and many moderate Republicans say they have seen no tangible evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

“We are barreling toward a government shutdown without making progress on cutting our out-of-control spending. Yet Republican leadership has decided to divert attention to an impeachment inquiry,” Representative Ken Buck said in a Washington Post Op-Ed late last week. “Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history.”

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone, Sandra Maler and Shri Navaratnam)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden sued the U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Monday, alleging unlawful disclosure of his taxes by whistleblowers who work for the U.S. tax agency.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, focused on statements made by IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler in media interviews amid a long-running investigation by House of Representatives Republicans into the younger Biden’s taxes and business dealings.

Hunter Biden, 53, is at the center of a political maelstrom, as House Republicans mount an impeachment inquiry against his father focused on alleged ties between his business practices and his father’s policies during his father’s tenure as vice president from 2009 to 2017. They have so far presented no evidence showing that the elder Biden profited from his son’s businesses. The White House has denied any wrongdoing.

Hunter Biden is the first child of a sitting U.S. president to have been criminally indicted. Prosecutors last week charged him with three counts related to the fact that he was lying about using illegal drugs when he bought a firearm. Hunter Biden and prosecutors earlier had reached a plea deal over tax and gun charges, but it collapsed.

Monday’s lawsuit refers to “more than 20 nationally televised and non-congressionally sanctioned interviews and numerous public statements” by Shapley, Ziegler and their lawyers about Hunter Biden. Shapley and Ziegler have testified in Congress as whistleblowers about alleged political interference in an IRS investigation into Biden’s taxes. The Justice Department has denied any such interference.

“The lawsuit is about the decision by IRS employees, their representatives, and others to disregard their obligations and repeatedly and intentionally publicly disclose and disseminate Mr. Biden’s protected tax return information outside the exceptions for making disclosures in the law,” the lawsuit reads.

Biden is seeking $1,000 for each unauthorized disclosure of his tax return information, a declaration from the IRS, a data security plan from the agency, production of documents related to Biden’s taxes and other relief.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee called the lawsuit “intimidation” in a post on social media. The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hunter Biden last week also filed a lawsuit against a former White House aide during Donald Trump’s presidency over the aide’s alleged role in the publication of embarrassing images and emails.

Trump, who has cheered on the impeachment inquiry, was the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. The Senate acquitted him both times. Trump also has been charged in four criminal cases this year.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he dismissed the views of his own lawyers in continuing to challenge his 2020 defeat because he did not respect them, saying in an interview aired on Sunday that he had made up his own mind that the election had been “rigged” – a false claim that he continues to make.

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, is now facing four concurrent criminal prosecutions, including two involving his attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

“It was my decision,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, that the election was “rigged” against him, adding that he relied heavily upon his own “instincts” in coming to that conclusion.

Trump has continued to make false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

Asked why he dismissed the views of lawyers in the White House and his campaign that he had lost the election, Trump responded: “Because I didn’t respect them.”

Trump singled out former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who told him that he had lost the election, as one of the lawyers whose advice he did not follow.

“I listened to some people,” Trump said. “Guys like Bill Barr, who was a stiff, but he wasn’t there at the time. But he didn’t do his job because he was afraid.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four criminal cases, including a federal prosecution in Washington and a Georgia state indictment that involve to his attempts to recruit a slate of phony electors for congressional certification of the 2020 election results.

His comments on Sunday could undermine one of his possible legal defenses – that he relied on the advice of his lawyers in continuing to challenge his defeat. U.S. courts threw out dozens of legal challenges from Trump’s campaign and allies following the November 2020 election.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With a possible partial government shutdown looming in two weeks amid what a senior Democrat called a Republican “civil war,” House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday vowed to bring a defense spending bill to a vote “win or lose” this week despite resistance from hardline fellow Republicans.

Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, faulted the Republicans who hold a narrow 221-212 majority in the chamber as they bicker over spending and pursue a new impeachment drive against President Joe Biden while the United States faces a possible fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.

“Let’s be clear. House Republicans are in the middle of a civil war,” Jeffries told ABC’s “This Week” program, adding that the result has been “chaos, dysfunction and extremism” in Congress.

McCarthy is struggling to bring fiscal 2024 spending legislation to the House floor with Republicans fractured by hardline conservative demands for spending to be cut back to a 2022 level of $1.47 trillion – $120 billion below the spending that McCarthy agreed with Biden in May.

“What we should be focused on right now is avoiding an unnecessary government shutdown that will hurt the ability of our economy to continue to recover,” Jeffries said.

McCarthy has also begun to face calls for floor action seeking his ouster from hardline conservatives and others who have accused him of failing to keep promises he made to become speaker in January following a revolt from some of the most conservative Republicans in the House.

The Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate have until Oct. 1 to avoid a partial shutdown by enacting appropriations bills that Biden, a Democrat, can sign into law, or by passing a short-term stop gap spending measure to give lawmakers more time for debate.

McCarthy signaled a tougher stand with hardliners, telling the Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” program that he would bring the stalled defense bill to the floor this week. The House last week postponed a vote on beginning debate on the defense appropriations bill due to opposition from the hardliners.

“We’ll bring it to the floor, win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for our military,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also said he wants to make sure there is no shutdown on Oct. 1, saying: “A shutdown would only give strength to the Democrats.”

McCarthy has held closed-door discussions over the weekend aimed at overcoming a roadblock by the conservative hardliners to spending legislation. They want assurances that legislation will include their deep spending cuts, as well as conservative policy priorities including provisions related to tighter border security that are unlikely to secure Democratic votes.

“We made some good progress,” McCarthy said.

Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, told the “Fox News Sunday” program that she was optimistic about moving forward on appropriations after closed-door discussions.

But Republican Representative Nancy Mace told ABC’s “This Week” that she expects a shutdown and did not rule out support for a vote to oust McCarthy’s ouster. Mace complained that the speaker has not made good on promises to her involving action on women’s issues and gun violence.

“Everything’s on the table at this point for me,” Mace said.

Mace played down the consequences of a shutdown, saying much of the government would remain in operation and that the hiatus would give government workers time off with back pay at a later date.

Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a shutdown would risk harming the most vulnerable members of society who depend on government assistance.

“We’re talking about diminishing even something as simple and fundamental as feeding the children,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “We have to try to avoid it.”

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Hannah Lang; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -With a possible partial government shutdown looming in two weeks, House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said he would bring a defense spending bill to a vote “win or lose” this week, despite resistance from hardline fellow Republicans.McCarthy is struggling to bring fiscal 2024 spending legislation to the House floor, with Republicans fractured by conservative demands for spending to be cut to a 2022 level of $1.47 trillion – $120 billion below the spending on which McCarthy agreed with Biden in May.

Late on Sunday, members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and the more moderate Main Street Caucus announced a deal on a short-term stopgap bill to keep the government open until October 31, but with a spending cut of more than 8% on agencies apart from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The measure, which is unlikely to become law, also includes conservative restrictions on immigration and the U.S. border with Mexico. It does not include funding for Ukraine, which Biden had requested.

Republicans have said that such a deal could allow the House to move forward on the defense spending bill this week.

But it was unclear whether the measure had sufficient Republican support to pass the chamber. The spending cuts were also likely to draw opposition from Democrats in the House and Senate, who reject the immigration provisions.

Republicans hold a narrow 221-212 majority in the chamber as they bicker over spending and pursue a new impeachment drive against President Joe Biden while the United States faces a possible fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.

McCarthy has begun to face calls for floor action seeking his ouster from hardline conservatives and others who have accused him of failing to keep promises he made to become speaker in January after a revolt from some of the most conservative Republicans in the House.

The Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate have until Oct. 1 to avoid a partial shutdown by enacting appropriations bills that Biden, a Democrat, can sign into law, or by passing a short-term stopgap spending measure to give lawmakers more time for debate.

McCarthy signaled a tougher stand with hardliners, telling the Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” program that he would bring the stalled defense bill to the floor this week. The House last week postponed a vote on beginning debate on the defense appropriations bill due to opposition from the hardliners.

“We’ll bring it to the floor, win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for our military,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also said he wants to make sure there is no shutdown on Oct. 1, saying: “A shutdown would only give strength to the Democrats.”

McCarthy has held closed-door discussions over the weekend aimed at overcoming a roadblock by the conservative hardliners to spending legislation. They want assurances that legislation will include their deep spending cuts, as well as conservative policy priorities including provisions related to tighter border security that are unlikely to secure Democratic votes.

“We made some good progress,” McCarthy said.

Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, told the “Fox News Sunday” program that she was optimistic about moving forward on appropriations after closed-door discussions.

But Republican Representative Nancy Mace told ABC’s “This Week” that she expects a shutdown and did not rule out support for a vote to oust McCarthy’s ouster. Mace complained that the speaker has not made good on promises to her involving action on women’s issues and gun violence.

“Everything’s on the table at this point for me,” Mace said.

Mace played down the consequences of a shutdown, saying much of the government would remain in operation and that the hiatus would give government workers time off with back pay at a later date.

Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a shutdown would risk harming the most vulnerable members of society who depend on government assistance.

“We’re talking about diminishing even something as simple and fundamental as feeding the children,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “We have to try to avoid it.”

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Hannah Lang and Laura Sanicola; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham, Caitlin Webber and Gerry Doyle)

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