Speaker
Nancy Pelosi and
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell want to get all 12 spending bills passed by the end of this year, but a standoff over President Donald Trump’s
border wall remains the biggest obstacle in bipartisan talks to avoid another government shutdown.
Pelosi and McConnell spoke on the phone Monday and agreed that “the goal” was to finish all appropriations bills by Dec. 31, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also told
Democratic committee chairmen that he had spoken to McConnell last week, and the two had agreed that any short-term funding measure to keep the government open shouldn’t extend past year’s end.