Wednesday is the deadline for Congress to avoid a government shutdown

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Obama spoke to Boehner and McConnell on September 17 at the two leaders’ request, and reiterated his call for congressional Republicans to sit down with Democrats to work out a budget, an administration official said.

The GOP-controlled House has already passed a series of fiscal 2016 appropriations bills that would get around spending caps for the Defense Department by plussing up the wartime OCO fund. Democrats have vowed to block those plans, arguing that it’s irresponsible not to lift spending caps for all federal departments.

Earlier in the week, outgoing House Speaker John Boehner vowed that there would be no government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding and signaled plans to pass the Senate stop-gap funding bill with help from Democrats.

“What I think was bad optics was five hours of haranguing and grilling Cecile Richards yesterday and not barely letting her get a word in edgewise where she was explaining very clearly what Planned Parenthood does, who Planned Parenthood serves and why Planned Parenthood is so important to the women, men and families of this country”, Laguens said.

Republicans seek increases to military funding, while Obama will press for similar hikes for domestic programs.

Democrats uniformly vote against procedural rules on the floor, putting the onus on Republicans to provide enough votes to pass them.

“I remain deeply concerned about the potential of finding ourselves facing a government shutdown again in December”.

Wednesday’s scheduled vote comes after a 77-19 tally on Monday easily beat a token filibuster threat. The measure, passed at a vote of 241 to 137, however, is a separate piece of legislation from the federal funding bill and is expected to fail in the Senate.

After defending the organization’s practices, Laguens went on the offensive and repeatedly slammed Republicans during the interview for their behavior during the hearing on Tuesday and their aim to defund Planned Parenthood. McConnell is seeking to protect embattled incumbents in Democratic-leaning states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, while a few GOP conservatives are more apt to use the battle to appeal to the party’s core voters on the right.

One of the Republicans’ presidential aspirants, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

That same question was also asked several times of Richards by a South Carolina lawmaker and Richards said she wasn’t sure. “Look at how you’ve been treated, Ms. Richards”, said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Virginia.

A bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood was recently approved in the House, but failed in the Senate. Eight Republicans did not support that measure, leaving it short of a simple majority, much less the 60 votes required to overcome the filibuster.