McConnell announces Senate Republicans will defer to House spending bill

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Senate Republicans will vote against advancing the chamber’s bipartisan stopgap spending bill, instead deferring to a bill coming from the House as the main way to avoid a government shutdown.

McConnell told reporters that the House bill, which is a 45-day continuing resolution that includes disaster aid funding but no money for Ukraine, is the preferred option of his members, and that they will overwhelmingly vote against cloture in order to focus on that option.

Shortly after McConnell’s remarks, that bill passed the House in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 335-91 vote and will now head to the Senate.

“I’m fairly confident that most of my members — our members — are going to vote against cloture,” McConnell said of the Senate-crafted bill. “Not necessarily because they are opposed to the underlying bill. But to see what the House can do on a bipartisan basis, and then bring it over to us.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the House’s stopgap bill Saturday evening.

Updated at 3:25 p.m.