The successful vote in the House provided only a faint glimmer of hope that a crisis could be averted before much of the government exhausts its funds at midnight on Friday.
WASHINGTON — The House approved on Thursday night a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open past Friday, but Senate Democrats — angered by President Trump’s vulgar aspersions and a lack of progress on a broader budget and immigration deal — appeared ready to block the measure.
The successful 230-197 vote in the House, where the bill’s chances had appeared in question until shortly beforehand, provided only a faint glimmer of hope that a crisis could be averted before much of the government exhausts its funds at midnight on Friday. The bill would fund the government through Feb. 16.
But in the Senate, at least a dozen Democratic votes will be needed to approve the measure on Friday, and there is little chance those will materialize. Democrats are intent on securing concessions that would, among other things, protect from deportation young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, increase domestic spending, aid Puerto Rico and bolster the government’s response to the opioid crisis.
“At some point, Congress needs to do better than government-by-crisis, short-term fixes, and sidestepping difficult issues. That time is now,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “I still believe we can keep the government open, solve the issues we’ve failed to address for several months, and govern this country the way the American people expect us to, but the short-term bill that House Republicans passed tonight simply doesn’t meet the test of basic governance.
The weeks-old standoff on immigration and spending only grew more charged last week after Mr. Trump referred to African nations as “shithole countries.” By Thursday, budget negotiations were making little progress even as prominent House Democrats were introducing a resolution to censure the president for his words .
In the Senate, Democrats were unifying around a “no” vote. If the stopgap bill passes, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said, “there will be no incentive to negotiate, and we’ll be right back here in a month with the same problems at our feet.”
Republicans were left seething.
“We’re either going to act like 13-year-olds or not,” said Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana. “Our first job is to keep government going, and if you’re going to shut her down, it better be for a damn good reason.”
It is anything but clear which side would pay the steepest political price if the government does indeed run out of money a year to the day after Mr. Trump took office. But Mr. Trump is not making it easier for congressional Republicans.
The perilous day on Capitol Hill began with the president firing off a Twitter message that undermined his party’s strategy to keep the government open. Republican leaders had spent Wednesday pressuring Democrats to vote for the spending bill, arguing that opposing it would effectively block a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which they had included in the spending bill. Funding for the program lapsed at the end of September.
Yet on Thursday morning, Mr. Trump suggested that the funding should not be part of the stopgap bill, writing on Twitter: “CHIP should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!”
Hours after Mr. Trump’s message, the administration tried to walk it back. A White House spokesman, Raj Shah, said that the president supported the House’s stopgap bill.
But Democrats pressed their advantage. Mr. Schumer brought up the tweet and questioned whether it meant that the president opposes the stopgap measure that congressional leaders from his own party are trying to pass.
“Who knows?” Mr. Schumer asked. “It’s a mess.”
For hours afterward, it remained unclear whether Republican leaders in the House could muster the votes to get the stopgap through that chamber.
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, made clear that she was unmoved by the inclusion of CHIP funding in the stopgap bill.
“This is like giving you a bowl of doggy doo, put a cherry on top and call it a chocolate sundae,” she said.
By Thursday night, the focus had turned to the Senate, with barely 24 hours left for lawmakers to find a way to keep the government’s lights on.
Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, whose constituents include hundreds of thousands of federal workers, announced together that they, too, would oppose the temporary spending bill in the Senate.
If Senate Republicans were unified in support and continued to lack the vote of Senator John McCain of Arizona, they would still have needed at least 10 Democrats to join them for the bill to succeed in that chamber. With several expected Republican defections, that number would grow even larger.
“Congress should remain in session with no recess until we work out a long-term bipartisan budget deal that addresses all issues,” Mr. Warner and Mr. Kaine said in a joint statement.
Against that darkening backdrop, House leaders pressed forward with a planned vote on the temporary spending bill.
Not only were Democrats opposed, but many members of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservatives, had reservations. Earlier in the day, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, the leader of the Freedom Caucus, expressed frustration that Congress was looking to pass its fourth stopgap spending measure for the 2018 fiscal year.
“Three strikes, you’re out,” he said, adding, “I guess the speaker has the best plan, and so we’ll just see how that works out.”
But shortly before the vote on Thursday night, the Freedom Caucus announced that it had decided to support the stopgap bill.
Traveling in Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump accused Democrats of provoking a shutdown to drown out discussion of the Republican tax overhaul.
“I think the Democrats would like to see a shutdown in order to get off that subject,” Mr. Trump told reporters before delivering a speech.
The Senate still needs to give its approval to avert a shutdown early Saturday morning, but Democrats are not ready to offer their assent.
Eighteen members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted for the last stopgap measure in December.
