Clyburn says government shut down is not ‘foregone conclusion’

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) predicted Sunday that it was not a "foregone conclusion" that the government will shut down when funding runs out later this week amid a struggle by House Republicans to come to an agreement ahead of the deadline.

When asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if a government shutdown is a foregone conclusion at this point, Clyburn said, "It is not a foregone conclusion. And I don' think we'll get to that point, I certainly hope not."

The federal government is set to run out of funds by the end of this week unless Congress can pass a temporary funding measures beforehand. Hoping to avert a shutdown, GOP leaders tried to pass a rule on a short-term stopgap bill last week to extend government funding past the Sept. 30 deadline, but were met with conservative opposition in the narrow GOP majority.

Over the next week, Republicans will work to pass four of their 12 full-year government funding bills, then make another go at a short-term stopgap bill to prevent a shutdown.

Pressed over what Democrats are doing to avoid a shutdown, Clyburn said, "We believe, we Democrats, very strongly that when you make a deal, you live by it."

"And the Speaker made a deal to what the budget would look like. Democrats agreed to it, House Democrats in the Senate, even Republicans in the Senate agreed to it," he continued, referring to a deal reached by President Biden and McCarthy earlier this summer to avoid a debt default. "They have marked up to those top lines and then all of a sudden, McCarthy seemed to be backing away from the deal because five or six people on his side of the aisle seemed to be calling the shots. The tail wagging the dog is not the way you do this."

His comments echo those he made Saturday, where he criticized McCarthy for acting beholden to the interests of the most conservative wing.