Biden to Convene Congressional Leaders as Partial Shutdown Looms

President Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday as lawmakers swiftly run out of time to strike a deal to avert another partial government shutdown.

The president plans to discuss the urgency of legislation to keep federal funding going past midnight on Friday, as well as his requests for billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and Israel, said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary.

“A basic, basic priority or duty of Congress is to keep the government open,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “So, that’s what the president wants to see. He’ll have those conversations.”

The spending bill is being held up by demands from hard-right lawmakers in the House, including measures to restrict abortion access, that many members will not support. Ultraconservatives have brought the government to the brink of a shutdown or a partial shutdown three times in the past six months as they try to win more spending cuts and conservative policy conditions written into how federal money is spent.

The result is that Congress has relied on short-term, stopgap spending bills to keep the government open, putting off a longer-term agreement for weeks at a time.

Tuesday’s meeting comes after Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, announced on Sunday that leaders had failed to reach a deal over the weekend because “House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out.” Speaker Mike Johnson accused Senate Democrats of “attempting at this late stage to spend on priorities that are farther left than what their chamber agreed upon.”