the house on Tuesday approved a stop Gap spending Bill to prevent a partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies until September that's the end of the fiscal year the narrow 217 to 213 vote is considered a major victory for republicans in Congress Who convinced even the most Hardline conservatives to support the bill even though it keeps spending at the same level as former President Biden signed into law it includes 13 billion in cuts for some domestic program and boost defense spending by six billion just one GOP member split from the party voting against the bill while one Democrat voted to support it but the political calculus is different in the Senate Republicans will need eight Democrats to cross the aisle in order to clear it for president Trump's signature which is needed by midnight on Friday for more on what's in the bill and what's at stake for New Jersey and elsewhere I'm joined by our Washington DC correspondent Ben hulac Ben uh obviously an especially busy time good to see you what can you share with us about the talks happening uh within the Senate chambers right now they've got a pretty impossible decision to make vote for the bill shut the government down right that the house left yesterday afternoon um after passing a republican written bill that Democrats had no input in and that will go that's over as you point out in the Senate side and it's the house essentially dare the Senate to not pass the bill and then trigger a shutdown of the federal government which would happen a little after midnight Friday eastern time um so there is the math is sort of interesting here Republicans have 53 seats in the Senate of course New Jersey's two members Cory Booker Andy Kim are Democrats um I'll be watching to see what they do but Republicans to pass this need to get seven votes they need to overcome the Fuster and hit 60 and Paul notorious uh Deb Hawk is a likely no so they probably need to get seven votes or eight eight votes rather Al till that's the math as we stand now what's in this bill um what do we know about what's included in what's not included what that means for folks here the basics are this is this is what in Washington they call a CR a continued resolution but it's unusual because it's quite long this runs all the way through the end of September which is when the federal budget ends and the elements I would point out actually that are most interesting to folks back in New Jersey or what's not in the bill uh these things called Community project funds or earmarks were stripped out these are uh projects these are lots of money that police departments libraries environmental groups nonprofits health organizations um petition Congress for and got in many cases and and at the 11th Hour that was stripped out over the weekend after Republicans unveiled their new bill which is what the house passed yesterday there's another element here that binds the hands of Congress if it wants to uh challenge the Trump Administration on trade policy there was another the measure I'm talking about would limit what Congress can do to block Trump's tariffs and that also snuck in so those are two interesting elements I'm paying attention to yeah and I know that's a big stick point for Democrats of course I mean this is also kind of unique right because we're already operating under a stop Gap Bill are we not I can't recall a time that the government's been funded for this long through a CR right um the budget wamps if they're watching would would know that Congress hasn't actually passed a a budget in the way it's supposed to since the Clinton Administration that's the 1990s um this is unus ual is a CR setting up another CR but the same elements are at play now that emerged in December when uh Trump and his adviser Elon Musk essentially torpedoed a bill that Democrats and Republicans had been working on for months and that uh I've written about that for the website before but yeah really in the Republican side they have the speaker in particular is between two uh Fierce forces one is on sort of the center flank people who want to keep the government running and generally are okay with spending levels as they are and then the hard right which says no no no we have to shut down the government at all costs and of course the president himself was calling members yesterday in the Republican side to urge them on that right flank to vote for this spending bill um so this is stuck between those two forces very quickly midnight Friday is the deadline what happens otherwise so essential Services would remain uh if there is a shutdown that's things like the military TSA but uh Park Service would run out of money and fundamentally makes it very hard to manage and budget and plan across federal agencies that are already reeling from Deep cuts that the Administration has made they sure are uh you can follow all of Ben's reporting on our website njs Spotlight news.org you can also of course follow Ben on X and blue sky uh across social media Ben thanks so much course [Music]