Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is unveiling a new plan for avoiding a partial government shutdown on Sunday after a House GOP rebellion derailed a more conservative measure last week.

House leaders are aiming for a vote this week on a short-term extension of the current year’s government funding levels, called a continuing resolution (CR), to give congressional negotiators more time to hash out federal spending priorities for the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The new measure, closer in line with what Senate Democrats and the White House had called for than his first plan, is likely to spark fury among the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and its allies. But most Republicans are wary of the backlash of a potential government shutdown just weeks before Election Day.

Johnson took a swipe at the upper chamber for failing to pass a single one of their 12 appropriations bills, writing to House GOP colleagues on Sunday that because ‘Senate Democrats failed to pass a single appropriations bill or negotiate with the House on an acceptable topline number for FY 2025, a continuing resolution is the only option that remains.’

The plan would keep the government out of a partial shutdown through Dec. 20. House GOP leadership staff told reporters on Sunday that Democratic requests for additional dollars were rebuffed, and extra disaster relief funds that were in Johnson’s initial plan have been removed.

But it would include roughly an additional $230 million for the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), coupled with certain oversight measures, after a bipartisan push for more security following two foiled attempts on former President Trump’s life.

Perhaps the most significant change is the removal of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

That legislation, backed by Trump, passed the House earlier this year with all Republicans and five Democrats in favor. Johnson hoped that attaching it to a CR would force the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House – both of which have called it a nonstarter – to consider it, or at least that it would serve as a potent opening salvo in negotiations.

But 14 Republicans – most opposed to a CR on principle – tanked the bill last week.

Trump wrote on Truth Social ahead of the vote, ‘If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.’

‘Our legislation will be a very narrow, bare-bones CR including only the extensions that are absolutely necessary,’ Johnson pledged to colleagues Sunday.

‘While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances. As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.’

Government funding has been one of the most volatile fights in the 118th Congress, pitting even the most conservative House allies against each other.

Johnson’s new plan is not likely to abate those tensions. Critics of a CR through December have argued it would leave them with no choice but to group their 12 annual appropriations bills into a massive ‘omnibus’ spending bill, something nearly all Republican lawmakers oppose.

But House GOP leadership staff suggested it was more likely Congress would pass another CR into the new year rather than set new levels for fiscal year 2025 – lining up with Johnson’s original plan.

The speaker’s previous proposal would have funded the government through March, something Democrats and some national security hawks opposed. 

Trump allies, however, wanted to see the government funding fight kicked into the new year in hopes that he would win the White House and usher in a fully Republican Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not weigh in directly on the plan but took a swipe at Johnson for trying to pass his conservative CR last week. 

‘While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago. Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the MAGA way and wasted precious time,’ Schumer said in a statement.

‘If both sides continue to work in good faith, I am hopeful that we can wrap up work on the CR this week, well before the September 30 deadline. The key to finishing our work this week will be bipartisan cooperation, in both chambers.’

White House national security spokesman John Kirby deemed the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, ‘the major obstacle’ to achieving a cease-fire deal in recent weeks. 

During an appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ Kirby responded to The Wall Street Journal’s reporting that senior U.S. officials who hoped for months for a cease-fire and hostage release deal now do not expect Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement before the end of President Biden’s term. The report cited administration officials as saying Hamas makes demands and ‘then refuses to say ‘yes’ after the U.S. and Israel accept them.’ 

‘It’s certainly apparent to us that Mr. Sinwar remains the big obstacle here to getting a deal. And it certainly is the case that he has done nothing in the recent weeks to prove that he’s willing to move this forward in a good faith way. He is the major obstacle, no question about it,’ Kirby said Sunday. ‘It’s tough to get them to say yes to things that he’s already said that he wanted. So it’s very, very difficult.’ 

‘But as the president said the other day, everything’s unrealistic until all of a sudden it’s not anymore. And we’re gonna keep trying at this,’ Kirby added. ‘And this idea that we’re just throwing up our hands and ‘well, it’s not gonna happen before the end of the term,’ I can tell ya that’s not where the president is. It’s not where Jake Sullivan or Tony Blinken are. We still believe that there’s a possibility of moving this forward, and we’re gonna keep trying. Those hostages need an effort to get them home. We’re not going to give up on that.’  

Kirby reiterated the administration’s position that Israel has a right to defend itself, but acknowledged that some of the criticism of how Israel is handling the conflict has come from the Biden administration as well. 

‘They absolutely have a right to defend themselves. And we are still providing them the tools and capabilities to do that. But how they do it matters,’ Kirby said.  ‘President Biden has said that, Vice President Harris has said that to our Israeli counterparts. They need to be doing it in as precise and as discriminant a way to avoid damage to civilian infrastructure and more critically, to civilian life. So it does matter a lot to us.’ 

‘Fox News Sunday’ host Shannon Bream also asked Kirby to respond to the death of Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs Friday. 

Bream pointed to criticism from Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who suggested Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in expressing fear of escalation to Israeli officials after the strike, was not grateful enough to Israel for taking out a man responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans during the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. 

‘Nobody, including Secretary Austin, is shedding a tear over the death of Mr. Akil, who does have American blood on his hands. I think the world’s better for not having him walking around on the planet anymore. But that doesn’t mean we want to see a full out war. We don’t believe, again, that that’s in the best interest of the Israeli people,’ Kirby said. 

Akil was one of the Lebanon-based terrorist group’s top military officials, in charge of its elite forces, and had been on Washington’s wanted list for years.

The strike Friday came as the group was still reeling from an attack targeting Hezbollah communications earlier last week when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously. The attack killed 12 people, mostly Hezbollah members, and injured thousands, according to Hezbollah officials. Israel is suspected of being behind that attack but has not claimed responsibility. 

As Hezbollah has been launching rockets into Israel since October 2023, Kirby said the U.S. has been working at ‘intense diplomacy here now for months to try to prevent an escalation in the conflict up at the blue line with Lebanon.’  

‘We still believe that there should be a strong effort to work on that diplomacy and to try to get that – that escalation to stop, to get the situation to stabilize, ‘ Kirby said. 

Kirby also defended the Biden administration’s handling of Iran, despite criticism from Republicans. 

‘Iran is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world,’ Kirby said. ‘And that’s in part, actually large part, to what President Biden has done. Six hundred sanctions alone just in this administration, 60 sanction regimes. So I don’t buy the argument that we somehow turned a blind eye and just given them cash.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Vice President Kamala Harris will skip the historic Al Smith dinner, eschewing a decades-old campaign tradition in which presidential candidates roast each other.

Harris’ campaign told event organizers Harris was instead planning to campaign in an unspecified battleground state.

The annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is traditionally held in New York City to benefit Catholic Charities and is hosted by the archbishop of New York. This year’s event, on Oct. 17, will be the 79th.

‘We are disappointed that she will not be with us, as this is an evening of unity and putting aside political differences in support of a good cause of helping women and children in need regardless of race, creed, or background,’ Archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling told The New York Post. ‘We hope she reconsiders.’

Every presidential election year, the Republican and Democratic candidates will typically come together to give humorous speeches at the dinner. The tradition began when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon spoke at the event in 1960.

There have been exceptions to the tradition. The Al Smith dinner opted not to invite the two major presidential candidates during the 1996, 2000 and 2004 election cycles.

Fox News Digital asked the Trump campaign if the Republican candidate plans on attending the dinner but did not immediately hear back. The last time a Democratic candidate opted out of the event while a Republican nominee attended was in 1984, when President Ronald Reagan gave a speech without Walter Mondale in the audience. 

In 2020, both President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden appeared at the dinner. Neither candidate took shots at the other despite the intensity of the race.

‘Throughout my life of public service I’ve been guided by the tenets of Catholic social doctrine,’ Biden said in his speech. ‘What you do to the least among us, you do to me.’

‘Catholics have enriched our nation beyond measure,’ Trump said at the dinner. ‘The essence of the Catholic faith, as Jesus Christ said in the gospel, ‘Everyone will know you are my disciples.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately hear back.

The Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

Former President Trump vowed to ‘protect women at a level never seen before’ if elected, and to ensure that ‘powerful exceptions’ for abortion are adopted across the nation, in a social media post early Saturday.

Trump, in the lengthy late-night missive to his Truth Social in all capitalized letters, said ‘women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago, are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago, and are less optimistic and confident in the future than they were four years ago.’ 

‘I will fix all of that, and fast, and at long last this national nightmare will be over,’ he said. ‘Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free!’

Polls have consistently shown Trump running strongly, against Vice President Kamala Harris in most demographic groups, but struggling with women. Much of that has been attributed to the fact that the three justices he picked for the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which had enshrined abortion protections under federal law.

In his post, Trump wrote that women ‘will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and a vote of the people—and with powerful exceptions, like those that Ronald Reagan insisted on for rape, incest, and the life of the mother—but not allowing for Democrat demanded late term abortion in the 7th, 8th, or 9th month, or even execution of a baby after birth.’

‘I will protect women at a level never seen before,’ he said. ‘They will finally be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure.’ 

Trump added: ‘Their lives will be happy, beautiful, and great again!’ 

The former president’s play for the female vote comes after Vice President Harris campaigned in Georgia, delivering a speech about the consequences of, what her campaign calls ‘extreme Trump Abortion Bans.’ 

‘After Vice President Harris spent the week speaking about the consequences of Trump Abortion Bans and the stakes of this election for women’s lives, Donald Trump snapped — taking to his phone late at night to rant and rave about women,’ Harris-Walz 2024 Spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in response to Trump’s Truth Social post. ‘After ripping away our reproductive freedom, now he’s trying to tell us how to think.’ 

Chitika said ‘Trump thinks he can control women — he’s wrong.’ 

The Harris campaign said he is ‘terrified that women across the country will vote like our lives and freedoms depend on it, because they do.’ 

‘Women aren’t stupid. We see Trump’s Project 2025 agenda for what it is: an extreme plan to ban abortion nationwide and threaten access to IVF and birth control,’ Chitika said. ‘We’ll vote like it this November.’

But Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital that Harris and President Joe Biden have put women’s lives in danger, and noted the names of women who have been killed by illegal immigrants.

‘President Trump is right. Kamala may want to be the first woman president, but she’s made the lives of women worse — more dangerous and more unaffordable,’ Leavitt said. ‘If Kamala cared about protecting women, she would close the border and stop allowing rapists and murderers to flow into our country to prey on young women and girls. Kamala has never said the names of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nunguaray, and Rachel Morin. President Trump has honored their lives and consoled their grieving families.’ 

Leavitt added: ‘If women want safety, security and prosperity for our families, there’s only one option on the ballot — President Trump.’

As for Project 2025, a blueprint for a Republican administration crafted by the Heritage Foundation, Leavitt repeated Trump’s assertion that he did not commission it and has no plans to implement it if elected.

‘President Trump has repeatedly said he has nothing to do with Project 2025,’ Leavitt said, adding that ‘Kamala’s campaign is lying because they are losing.’

Harris continues to claim that Trump will install a national abortion ban that would allow for no exceptions, despite Trump repeatedly saying that he would never support a national abortion ban, and believes in exceptions for abortion, including rape, incest, and life of the mother. 

Harris has refused to say whether she supports any abortion restrictions up to birth. 

Trump has vowed that he ‘will not block’ abortion pills or abortion medication for women, should he be elected president.

Vice President Kamala Harris entered the final stretch of the 2024 race for the White House with a large fundraising advantage over former President Trump, new federal filings show.

Harris hauled in nearly $190 million in fundraising for her 2024 campaign in August, more than quadrupling the $44.5 million that Trump’s team reported bringing into his principal campaign account last month — this according to figures from the Federal Election Commission made public on Friday.

The Harris campaign also vastly outspent the Trump campaign last month, as it dished out roughly $174 million. Much of those expenditures went to creating and running ads, as the campaign aimed to familiarize Americans with Harris after she replaced President Biden on the Democrats’ 2024 ticket two months ago.

The Trump campaign, by comparison, listed just $61 million in expenditures, with most of the spending going toward media buys.

But despite the Harris spending spree, the vice president’s campaign entered September with $235 million cash-on-hand, far ahead of the $135 million Trump’s coffers, according to the FEC filings.

The latest cash figures are another sign of the vice president’s surge in fundraising since becoming her party’s standard-bearer.

Both the Harris and Trump campaigns use a slew of affiliated fundraising committees to haul in cash, and those panels file their reports on a different schedule.

The Harris campaign announced earlier this month that they and their allied committees hauled in $361 million in August — nearly triple the $130 million reported raised by the Trump campaign and its aligned committees.

The vice president’s team also touted that Harris hauled in $47 million from nearly 600,000 donors in the 24 hours after her first and potentially only debate with Trump, which took place earlier this month in Philadelphia.

When asked about the fundraising deficit, Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital in the debate spin room earlier this month that ‘the Democrats have a ton of money. The Democrats always have a ton of money.’

However, he emphasized that ‘we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through and we’re going to win on November 5.’