McConnell urges Senate Republicans to block bipartisan CR as House pushes clean stopgap

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on Saturday that Senate Republicans will deny Democrats the cloture votes needed to advance the chamber’s bipartisan continuing resolution while the House considers a clean CR.

Democrats currently control the Senate 50-49, though the absences of Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Tina Smith (D-MN) leave them with a single-seat minority. This means that Republicans have the ability to block the McConnell-approved bipartisan CR, which includes $6 billion in Ukraine aid and $6 billion in disaster aid.

HOUSE TO PUSH 45-DAY CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON FLOOR THAT EXCLUDES UKRAINE FUNDING

As House Republicans began to push a clean stopgap that would avert a shutdown, their Senate counterparts opted to pull back on their support for their measure.

“It looks like there may be a bipartisan agreement coming from the House,” McConnell told reporters just off the Senate floor. “So I’m fairly confident that most of my members, our members, are going to vote against closure. Not necessarily because they’re opposed to the underlying bill. We’ll see what the House can do on a bipartisan basis and then bring it over to us.”

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This story is breaking and will be updated.