A spending deal to fund most of the government gained momentum in the House on Monday, as President Trump and Republican leaders pressured conservative Republicans to drop their objections to allowing quick action to enact it and end the partial government shutdown.
The agreement, which the Senate approved on Friday and was the product of negotiations among Senate Republican and Democratic leaders and the White House, would keep the Department of Homeland Security running for two weeks while Democrats and Mr. Trump negotiate restrictions on the administration’s immigration crackdown.
But as the bill moved through the Senate, some hard-right lawmakers had raised objections and demanded changes that would have imperiled it, forcing Mr. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson to maneuver to line up the votes to bring it up as planned on Tuesday.
By Monday evening, they had persuaded at least two lawmakers who had threatened to derail the spending legislation to back down. Their turnabouts came after Mr. Trump, who endorsed the agreement last week and asked lawmakers to vote for it, reiterated that he wanted to see the legislation passed.
“I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY,” he wrote on social media. “There can be NO CHANGES at this time.”
The House must give final approval to the agreement to reopen major parts of the government — including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Transportation and the Treasury — that were shuttered on Saturday morning.
To do so, Mr. Johnson, who can hardly afford any defections given his minuscule majority, must pull together near-unanimous Republican support to get it to the floor. The House took a preliminary step forward on Monday night, when a panel controlled by the speaker advanced the package without making changes.
Representatives Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, and Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, had threatened to vote against advancing the package unless Republicans attached unrelated legislation that would require that individuals prove that they are American citizens before they can register to vote in elections.
The House passed such a measure, known as the SAVE Act, last year over the opposition of Democrats, who called it unnecessary and argued its requirements would be so burdensome that they could discourage Americans from exercising their right to vote. It has stalled in the Senate, where it would need the backing of at least seven Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold to proceed to a vote.
But after being summoned to a meeting at the White House on Monday, Ms. Luna and Mr. Burchett backed down, telling reporters that they had been given “assurances” that the Senate would find a way to take up the bill.
Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, another Republican who had raised objections to the spending deal, said on Monday that he would “reluctantly” vote to advance it.
Representative Greg Steube, Republican of Florida, said he was opposed overall to the spending package, the product of weeks of bipartisan negotiations, arguing that it contained excessive earmarks requested by lawmakers and funded foreign aid efforts he rejects.
“I will not support that approach,” he said. “Our law enforcement and border security professionals deserve clean and responsible funding.”
Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri, told a local radio station that the spending measure, which he opposed as it moved through the House this month, “did not get better; it got worse.”
“I don’t know why they think that they’re going to be able to get all the Republicans to vote for this,” he said in an interview with KSGF, a Springfield, Mo., station.
House Republicans have throughout Mr. Trump’s second term insisted they would block legislation, only to buckle when faced with pressure from the White House. They have repeatedly taken the president’s word when he has stepped in at critical moments to assure them he will address their priorities, commitments that have not always come to fruition.
Mr. Johnson, who has frequently leaned on the president for legislative support, is in a particularly tight spot this week. On Monday evening, he swore in to the House a Democrat who had won a special election in Texas, whittling down the Republican edge in the chamber to the point where he can afford just one defection on any party-line vote if all members are present. It was not yet clear whether he had marshaled the support to bring the measure to a vote.
The spending agreement was also dividing House Democrats, many of whom staunchly oppose providing any money for the Department of Homeland Security — even a two-week stopgap measure — given the violent tactics federal agents have used in carrying out Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, urged his colleagues on Monday to oppose the package, arguing in a letter that Democrats “must act now to demand real changes” before giving more funds to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
The issue of continuing to provide funding for ICE — particularly after Republicans included $75 billion in funding for the agency in their marquee tax bill over the summer — has emerged as a particularly politically toxic one for Democrats.
But driving some of the opposition is also skepticism among Democrats that Republican leaders will agree to any significant changes to the agency. A number of Republicans, for example, have already objected to Democrats’ demand that immigration agents not wear masks.
“The reason that ICE agents wear masks is to protect their own identities and protect their own families,” Mr. Johnson said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And in some circumstances, they’ve had a price put on their heads effectively by local officials.”
Some Democrats signaled that they would vote for the package if House Republicans were able to clear the procedural hurdle required to move it to the floor for a vote.
Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said on Monday that she would do so. The stopgap measure for homeland security, she said, “gives us time and it gives us leverage to secure the protections that we need for our communities.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, said on Monday that “there’s a variety of different perspectives” within his caucus on the spending package, and that Democrats would continue to discuss it.
But Mr. Jeffries said that it was “hard to imagine” members of his party helping Mr. Johnson muster the votes to get the spending package to the floor.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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