WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to carry out President Donald Trump’s “play call” for funding the government will be put to the test Tuesday as the House holds a procedural vote on a bill to end the partial shutdown.
Johnson will need near-unanimous support from his Republican conference to proceed. He can afford to lose only one Republican on party-line votes with perfect attendance, but some lawmakers are threatening to tank the effort if their priorities are not included. Trump weighed in with a social media post, telling them “There can be NO CHANGES at this time.”
“We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats. I hope everyone will vote, YES!,” Trump wrote on his social media site.
The measure would end the partial government shutdown that began Saturday, funding most of the federal government through Sept. 30 and the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks as lawmakers negotiate potential changes for the agency that enforces the nation's immigration laws — United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Johnson said on “Fox News Sunday” it was Trump's "play call to do it this way. He had already conceded he wants to turn down the volume, so to speak.” But GOP leaders sounded like they still had work to do in convincing the rank-and-file to join them as House lawmakers returned to the Capitol Monday after a week back in their congressional districts.
“We always work till the midnight hour to get the votes,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “You never start the process with everybody on board. You work through it, and you could say that about every major bill we've passed.”
The funding package passed the Senate on Friday. Trump says he'll sign it immediately if it passes the House. Some Democrats are expected to vote for the final bill, but not for the initial procedural measure setting the terms for the House debate, making it the tougher test for Johnson and the White House.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has made clear that Democrats wouldn't help Republicans out of their procedural jam, even though Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer helped negotiate the funding bill.
Jeffries noted that the procedural vote covers a variety of issues that most Democrats oppose, including resolutions to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
“If they have some massive mandate,” Jeffries said of Republicans, “then go pass your rule, which includes toxic bills that we don't support."
The path to the current partial shutdown differs from the fall impasse, which affected more agencies and lasted a record 43 days.
Then, the debate was over extending temporary, COVID-era subsidies for those who get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Democrats were unsuccessful in getting those subsidies included as part of a package to end the shutdown.
Congress has made important progress since then, passing six of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund federal agencies and programs. That includes important programs such as nutrition assistance and fully operating national parks and historic sites. They are funded through Sept. 30.
But the remaining unpassed bills represent roughly three-quarters of federal spending, including the Department of Defense. Service members and federal workers could miss paychecks depending upon the length of the current funding lapse.
Some House Republicans have demanded that the funding package include legislation requiring voters to show proof of citizenship before they are eligible to participate in elections. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., had said the legislation, known as the SAVE Act, must be included in the appropriations package.
But Luna appeared to drop her objections late Monday, writing on social media that she had spoken with Trump about a "pathway forward" for the voting bill in the Senate that would keep the government open.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank focused on democracy and voting rights issues, said the voting bill's passage would mean that Americans would need to produce a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, and that at least 21 million votes lack ready access to those papers.
“If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown,” Schumer said. “Let’s be clear, the SAVE Act is not about securing our elections. It is about suppressing voters."
Johnson has operated with a thin majority throughout his tenure as speaker. But with Saturday's special election in Texas, the Republican majority stands at a threadbare 218-214, shrinking the GOP's ability to withstand defections.
Associated Press video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks through the House Rules Committee hearing room to meet with Republicans on the panel as they try to advance a federal funding package and prevent a prolonged partial government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The almost monthlong disappearance from public view of Bolivia’s towering socialist icon, ex-leader Evo Morales, shortly after the Jan. 3 U.S. seizure of former Venezuelan president and his close ally Nicolás Maduro, is alarming his supporters, roiling his enemies and galvanizing the internet.
On Monday, he missed a ceremony that he typically attends welcoming students back from summer break. On Sunday, Morales was a no-show for the fourth straight weekly broadcast of his political radio show, which he has hosted without interruption for years.
Since early January, he has skipped scheduled meetings with members of his coca-leaf growing union in Bolivia’s remote Chapare region and his daily stream of social media content has all but dried up.
Although Morales has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on charges of human trafficking, his fugitive status hasn't stopped the firebrand union leader from speaking at rallies, receiving supporters, giving interviews, posting on X — or even running an unconventional presidential campaign last year — all from his political stronghold in the Chapare.
Morales rejects the statutory rape allegations as politically motivated.
The question of Morales’ whereabouts has set off furious speculation as the Trump administration imposes its political will in South America through sanctions, punitive tariffs, electoral endorsements, financial bailouts and military action.
Morales' close associates have privately declined to provide an explanation for his absences while publicly telling supporters that the former president has been recovering from dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral illness with symptoms that typically last no longer than a week.
“We have asked our brother Evo Morales to rest completely,” said Dieter Mendoza, vice president of an body of farmers known as the Six Federations that runs the coca-leaf trade in the tropics, declining to elaborate.
For Morales' rivals, the mystery has stirred resentful memories of 2019, when he resigned under pressure from the military after his disputed bid for an unconstitutional third term provoked mass protests. Morales fled to Mexico then took refuge in Argentina, only to return home when Luis Arce, his former finance minister, took the presidency in 2020.
“Evo Morales is in Mexico,” declared right-wing lawmaker Edgar Zegarra, offering no evidence but demanding that the government prove otherwise. “He has not appeared, not even at political events, and they don’t know how to justify it.”
Security officials within Bolivia's first conservative government following almost 20 years of dominance by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, have been cryptic.
“The former president has not left Bolivia,” said Police Commander Gen. General Mirko Sokol, “at least not through any official channels.”
WhatsApp messages and calls to Morales went unanswered Monday.
Bolivia's election of centrist President Rodrigo Paz last October came as part of a wider ideological swing across Latin America, where U.S. President Donald Trump has become increasingly entangled in regional politics.
In the last two years, right-wing would-be saviors have come to power in countries wracked by economic crisis like Argentina and consumed by fears of violent crime like Chile. Costa Rica's election of a right-wing populist Monday reinforced the trend.
Like Maduro and his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, Morales was openly hostile to the United States and cozied up to its political foes during his 14 years as Bolivia's first Indigenous president from 2006 to 2019.
In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and counternarcotics officials for allegedly conspiring against his government. Russia poured money into Bolivia’s energy and lithium mining sectors. Chinese companies won contracts to build highways and dams. Iran offered the country its drone technology.
Now Paz is trying to reverse the political direction. His government has scrapped visa requirements for American tourists, held talks with U.S. officials on securing loans to rescue Bolivia's economy and paved the way for the return of the Drug Enforcement Agency to Bolivia, a regional cocaine-trafficking hub.
The prospect of the DEA’s reappearance has rattled the Bolivian tropics still scarred from an aggressive U.S.-backed war on drugs in the late 1990s that forced coca farmers to eradicate their crops. The plant is the raw material of cocaine but it also holds deep cultural and spiritual significance in the country.
Coca farmers in the Chapare say they haven't seen Morales since Jan. 8, as panic about a rare overflight by a Super Puma helicopter gripped the jungle region. Deputy Social Defense Minister, Ernesto Justiniano, later explained it was a data collection mission in coordination with foreign agencies, including the DEA, but had nothing to do with Morales.
“State surveillance should not be a threat to anyone," he said.
Right-wing contenders in last year's presidential election campaign — including ex-President Jorge Quiroga, who ultimately lost the runoff to the more moderate Paz — vowed that if elected, they'd yank Morales from his hideout in the Chapare and lock him up.
Now, they're seizing on unverified rumors of Morales' escape to ratchet up the pressure on Paz.
“He’s playing hide-and-seek, he’s making a mockery of the state,” Quiroga said of Morales. “The country cannot speak of legal security when an arrest warrant is not executed.”
Bolivia's judiciary, with its history of tacking where political winds blow, has already freed right-wing opposition figures and pursued cases against former officials, detaining former President Arce just weeks after Paz's inauguration.
But unlike Arce, Morales retains a strong, albeit small, base of support. Loyalists protecting him from arrest have vowed to resist with guerrilla tactics if security forces invade the Chapare.
Morales could appear at any time and quash the speculation about his status.
But for now his inner circle appears content to leave things a mystery.
“Our brother president is doing very well,” said Leonardo Loza, a former senator and close friend of Morales. “He is in a corner of our greater homeland.”
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
FILE - Bolivia's former President Evo Morales chews coca in Lauca N, Chapare region, Bolivia, Nov. 3, 2024, amid an ongoing political conflict with the government of President Luis Arce. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
