Biden and his team kept tabs but did not overly influence House Democratic votes for the measure, which passed largely with their support.
Like much of Washington, the Biden White House was caught off guard Saturday morning when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy abruptly reversed course and announced that he would bring a clean bill to fund the government for the next 45 days.
But aides weren’t terribly surprised. After all, they had assumed the government shutdown showdown would end this way at some point — with the main question being whether McCarthy would take his lumps before or after the funding deadline.
They weren’t displeased with the outcome.
The bill McCarthy brought to the House floor didn’t just fund the government, it also included $16 billion in disaster relief and, as one White House official noted, avoided “any version of the deep cuts to essential domestic programs that were proposed in the past few days.”
There was one major concession the administration would have to accept: The House funding measure did not include aid for Ukraine, a priority for President Joe Biden. It was also a blow to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met with Biden and lawmakers last week to once again make the case for additional funds for Kyiv’s defense against Moscow.
But inside the administration, aides attempted to downplay that exclusion. “Speaker McCarthy has stated his support for aid to Ukraine,” the White House official said, adding that they expected him to bring a separate bill to the floor “shortly.”
How much of that was spin, wishcasting, or solid intel was hard to tell.
