The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed a $1.2 trillion budget bill on March 23, keeping the government funded through a fiscal year that began six months ago and sending it to President Joe Biden to sign into law and avert a partial shutdown. The vote on passage was 74-24.

Key federal agencies including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State and Treasury, which houses the Internal Revenue Service, will remain funded through Sept. 30 after the bill was passed in the Democratic-majority Senate.

But the measure did not include funding for mostly military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel, which are included in a different Senate-passed bill that the Republican-led House of Representatives has ignored.

Senate leaders spent hours on March 23 negotiating numerous amendments to the budget bill that ultimately were defeated. The delay pushed passage beyond a Friday midnight deadline.

But the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a statement saying agencies would not be ordered to shut, expressing confidence that the Senate would promptly pass the bill, which it did.

Partisan divisions on display, again

While Congress got the job done, deep partisan divides were on display again, as well as bitter disagreement within the House’s narrow and fractious Republican majority. Conservative firebrand Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene threatened to force a vote to remove Speaker Mike Johnson, a fellow Republican, for allowing the measure to pass.

The 1,012-page bill provides $886 billion in funding for the Defence Department, including a raise for U.S. troops. Mr. Biden, a Democrat, has indicated he will sign it.

Mr. Johnson, as he has done more than 60 times since succeeding his ousted predecessor Kevin McCarthy in October, relied on a parliamentary manoeuvre to bypass hardliners within his own party on March 22, allowing the measure to pass by a 286-134 vote that had substantially more Democratic support than Republican.

For most of the past six months, the government was funded with four short-term stopgap measures, a sign of the repeated brinkmanship that rating agencies have warned could hurt the creditworthiness of a federal government that has nearly $34.6 trillion in debt.

Also read: Unnecessary brinkmanship: On the U.S.’s fiscal quagmire

“This legislation is truly a national security bill — 70% of the funding in this package is for our national defence, including investments that strengthen our military readiness and industrial base, provide pay and benefit increases for our brave servicemembers and support our closest allies,” said Republican Senator Susan Collins, one of the main negotiators.

Opponents cast the bill as too expensive. “It’s reckless. It leads to inflation. It’s a direct vote to steal your paycheck,” said Senator Rand Paul, part of a band of Republicans who generally oppose most spending bills.

The last partial federal government shutdown occurred during Donald Trump’s presidency, from Dec. 22, 2018 until Jan. 25, 2019. The record-long interruption in government services came as the Republican insisted on money to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and was unable to broker a deal with Democrats.

Trouble for Speaker Johnson?

The new budget bill passed the House with 185 Democratic and 101 Republican votes, which led Ms. Greene, a hardline conservative, to introduce her measure to oust Mr. Johnson.

Also read: Mike Johnson | The man with the gavel

That move had echoes of October when a small band of hardliners engineered a vote that removed Mr. McCarthy for relying on Democrats to pass a stopgap measure to avert another partial government shutdown.

They had been angry at Md. McCarthy since June, when he agreed with Mr. Biden on the outlines of the fiscal 2024 spending that were passed on March 22.

Mr. McCarthy’s ouster brought the House to a halt for three weeks as Republicans struggled to agree on a new leader, an experience many in the party said they did not want to repeat as the November election draws nearer.

Ms. Greene said she would not push for an immediate vote on her move to force Mr. Johnson out. “I filed a motion to vacate today. But it’s more of a warning than a pink slip,” the Georgia Republican told reporters.

Indeed, some Democrats said that they would vote to keep Mr. Johnson, if he were to call a vote on a $95 billion security assistance package already approved by the Senate for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

That measure is unlikely to come up anytime soon, as lawmakers will now leave Washington for a two-week break.

Pockets of Republican opposition to more funding for Ukraine have led to fears that Russia could seriously erode Kyiv’s ability to continue defending itself.

Life is unlikely to become easier for Mr. Johnson anytime soon, with the looming departure of two members of his caucus – Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher – set to reduce his majority to a mere 217-213 in a month’s time. At that point, he could afford to lose only one vote from his party on any measure that Democrats unite to oppose.

Former President Donald Trump is officially backing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, House Judiciary Committee chairman and long-time Donald Trump defender, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after midnight Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”

The announcement came hours after Texas Rep. Troy Nehls said on October 5 that Mr. Trump had decided to back Mr. Jordan’s bid and after Mr. Trump had been in talks to visit Capitol Hill next week as Republicans debate who should be the next speaker following Mr. McCarthy’s stunning ouster.

The trip would have been Donald Trump’s first to the Capitol since leaving office and since his supporters attacked the building in a bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021. Mr. Trump has been indicted in both Washington and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.

Donald Trump, the current GOP Presidential front-runner, has used the leadership vacuum on the Hill to further demonstrate his control over the Republican Party. House Republicans are deeply fractured and some have been asking him to lead them — a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he also promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.

Mr. Trump had been telling people in recent days that he preferred Jim Jordan for the post, according to two Republicans familiar with his thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it. But it was unclear whether he intended to announce it before Mr. Nehls’ tweet.

“Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Mr. Nehls wrote late Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Explained | What are the implications of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster?

In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Nehls, who had been encouraging Donald Trump himself to run for job, said the former President had made up his mind.

“After him thinking about it and this and that … he said he really is in favour of getting behind Jim Jordan,” Mr. Nehls said. “He believes Jim Jordan is right for the job.”

Jim Jordan is one of the two leading candidates manoeuvering for Speaker along with Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both are trying to lock in the 218 votes required to win the job and need the support of both the far-right and moderate factions of the party. It’s unclear whether a Trump endorsement will force Mr. Scalise, the current GOP majority leader, out of the race.

Mr. Nehls said that if no current candidate succeeds in earning the support needed to win, he would once again turn to Mr. Trump. “Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get to 218,” he said in an interview.

Earlier, Donald Trump had told Fox News Digital that he was heading to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Republicans. Three people familiar with the matter disclosed the talks about visiting the Capitol to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement. Mr. Nehls, however, said it was unlikely Mr. Trump would make the trip.

Mr. Trump would most likely have attended a closed-door candidate forum that Republicans plan to hold Tuesday evening ahead of a Speakership vote that could happen as soon as on Wednesday, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Jordan is also one of Donald Trump’s biggest champions on the Hill and has been leading the investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former President. He was also part of a group of Republicans who worked with Mr. Trump to overturn his defeat ahead of January 6. Mr. Scalise has also worked closely with Mr. Trump over the years.

One of the people familiar with the planning had cautioned earlier on Thursday that, if Mr. Trump did go ahead with the visit, he would be there to talk with Republican lawmakers and not to pitch himself for the role.

Still, Mr. Trump continued to stoke speculation, telling Fox News Digital on Thursday that he would accept a short-term role as Speaker — for anywhere from 30 to 90 days — if another candidate doesn’t have the votes to win.

“I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he told the outlet. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the Speakership until they get somebody longer-term, because I am running for President.”

In a social media post earlier in the day, he added that he “will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made – A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Republican conference is filled with members generally supportive of Donald Trump, but whether they’d back him to serve as Speaker remained to be seen. The role is a demanding position — effectively running the Capitol and dealing with hundreds of lawmakers — and requires an attention to the arcane details of legislating that Mr. Trump showed little interest in even when he was President.

While he is dominating his GOP Presidential rivals, Mr. Trump is also still travelling to early primary states to campaign and has been spending much of his time focussed on the four criminal indictments and several civil cases he is facing.

While there is no requirement that a person be elected to the House to serve as Speaker, every one of the 55 Speakers the House has elected has been a member of the chamber. From time to time, lawmakers have thrown their votes to those outside of Congress, often as a protest against the candidates running.

Mr. Trump helped Mr. McCarthy win the Speakership in January after 15 rounds of voting. But he exhorted Republicans to impeach Joe Biden and to reject deals that McCarthy negotiated. Last month, he urged the right flank to support a government shutdown if Republicans did not win deep spending cuts, declaring on social media that the GOP “lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”

Kevin McCarthy ultimately moved to keep the government open for 45 days without the cuts demanded by hard-right conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and long-time Donald Trump ally, cited that decision as reason to move to depose the Speaker.

Among those who had pushed Mr. Trump for Speaker was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a long-time Trump ally who didn’t vote to remove Mr. McCarthy. She posted on X that she believed “he would take the job.”

Mr. Nehls, the Texas Republican who was among the first to promote Mr. Trump for the job, said before his Thursday evening conservation with Mr. Trump that he’d been contacted “by multiple Members of Congress willing to support and offer nomination speeches for Donald J. Trump to be Speaker of the House.” “Next week,” he wrote on X, “is going to be HUGE.”