The government is close to reopening. The Senate voted Monday in favor of a temporary spending bill to fund the government until February 8th. The Daily Beast's White House Reporter Lachlan Markay explains rhetoric on Capitol Hill over this short-term resolution.
"Really all Democrats were able to get out of this deal was an agreement to vote on something that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell insisted the Senate was already going to vote on," says Markay. "So from the Democratic perspective its not clear they got anything." McConnell promised the Democrats to vote on immigration reform as part of the spending resolution.
The House still needs to approve the measure the Senate passed in order for the government to reopen. With the funding extension, it's possible the government could face another shutdown in three weeks says Markay.
With less than two months until the end of the year, the Biden administration is running out of time to win the reauthorization of a spy program it says is vital to preventing terrorism, catching spies and disrupting cyberattacks.
Hunter Biden asked a judge on Wednesday to approve subpoenas for documents from Donald Trump and former Justice Department officials related to whether political pressure wrongly influenced the criminal case against him.
The Energy Department is making a push to strengthen the U.S. battery supply chain, announcing up to $3.5 billion for companies that produce batteries and the critical minerals that go into them.
Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are heading into their big meeting at a country estate in California on Wednesday hoping to stabilize U.S.-China relations after a period of tumult.