Biden tells House and Senate leaders there’s ‘a lot of work to do’ in last-ditch bid to avoid government shutdown

President Joe Biden told Congressional leaders they have “a lot of work to do” in order to enact legislation that will keep the federal government operating for the rest of this fiscal year and fund “urgent” defence assistance for Ukraine, Israel and other American allies.

Mr Biden told House and Senate leaders in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning that the consequences of a failure to include the defence spending package in any deal to keep the government open would be “dire” for America’s Ukrainian allies based on conversations with other Group of Seven leaders.

He also urged passage of the supplemental funding bill because it includes needed aid for Israel and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, and stressed that Congress has there responsibility of funding the government and preventing the economic damage that a shutdown would cause.

The meeting between Mr Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell started at 11.30am ET.

It is a last-ditch attempt to push them towards keeping the entirety of the federal government funded past the end of this week despite an ongoing impasse over federal budgeting caused by Republican hardliners in the House.

Currently, the government is operating on Fiscal Year 2023 funding levels set by a Continuing Resolution — a bill which extends a prior year’s budgeting as a temporary measure.

The stopgap bill was passed earlier this year to give the Republican-led House of Representatives time to work out internal disputes over how to approach budgeting for the current fiscal year, which started on 1 October.

Funding for a