Yet the top Republican leaders in CongressHouse Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellhaven’t talked to each other for two weeks.
That revelation on Wednesday marks the clearest sign yet that Congress will likely let the agency run out of money at the end of the day on Friday.
Both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans for the first time in nearly a decade, a fact that the new GOP majority hoped would unify their party.
But instead of working together to clear one of the first major legislative hurdles of the new Congress, McConnell and Boehner have left communications to their staffs, Republican sources tell CNN, and are effectively pointing at each other to come up with an end game.
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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has been a regular public presence, warning about the impact for his agency of a shutdown. He’s also continuing to make the rounds on Capitol Hill, appealing to members to find a way out before the deadline at midnight on Friday.
Jeh Johnson warns governors of DHS shutdown’s impact
CNN’s Dana Bash and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
