Presented by

COUNTDOWN TO SHUTDOWN — In the House, the two parties struck a deal this morning to avert a government shutdown ahead of the midnight Friday deadline. The patch would extend current funding levels to Feb. 18, later than Democrats originally wanted; in return, they got $7 billion more for Afghan refugee resettlement. A vote is expected later today on the House floor.

But, but, but: A band of Senate conservatives still threatens to derail the deal in protest of President JOE BIDEN’s vaccine mandates. More from Sarah Ferris and Caitlin Emma

— The latest from the hard-liners: Sen. ROGER MARSHALL (R-Kan.) said today he’ll prevent the continuing resolution from passing quickly “unless he gets an amendment vote to defund the Biden vaccine mandate on businesses at a 51-vote threshold,” per CNN’s Daniella Diaz. “Shutting down the government is worth saving the jobs in Kansas,” he said.

— Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas), who helped cause a shutdown eight years ago, had this to say: “In 2013, CHUCK SCHUMER, HARRY REID and the Democrats forced a shutdown because they wanted to support Obamacare, which was enormously harmful to millions of Texans and millions of Americans. And today, Schumer is once again trying to force a shutdown. In this case, in defense of Joe Biden’s illegal and unconstitutional vaccine mandates.”

But Cruz also echoed Marshall, telling reporters that a stand-alone vaccine mandate vote would appease him: “I would accept an amendment — to vote on it on a simple majority threshold.”

— It’s not just Republicans: Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) told reporters today that he might support that amendment. “I’ve been very supportive of the mandate for federal government, for military, for all the people that work on government payroll,” he said. “I’ve been less enthused about it in the private sector.” But, but, but: Anthony Adragna and Burgess Everett report that “Manchin is much more likely to support a congressional rollback of the vaccine regulations in the coming days outside the government spending bill,” since he hates shutdowns.

— Speaker NANCY PELOSI spoke angrily this morning about the group of Senate Republicans possibly holding up government funding. “We’re not going to go for their anti-vaxxing, OK?” she said at her weekly press conference. “So if you think that’s how we’re going to keep government going, forget that.” She called it “a double sense of irresponsibility” on the part of Republicans shutting down the government while also opposing vaccine mandates.

Worth noting: The insistence by Cruz, Marshall and Sen. MIKE LEE (R-Utah) on a vaccine vote at a simple majority threshold — rather than a 60-vote threshold — sounds a lot like the argument we’ve heard in favor of a certain Senate reform idea popular with many Democrats!

Good Thursday afternoon, and happy palindrome day (12/02/2021).

QUOTE OF THE DAY — In the wake of the Supreme Court’s hearing for a major abortion case Wednesday, Pelosi this morning warned of new restrictions on the procedure: “It’s scary. It’s really scary.” She also quipped of the justices, “Sometimes, I think they need a session in the birds and the bees.”

THE ECONOMY

THE UNEMPLOYMENT PICTURE — New unemployment claims ticked up slightly to 222,000 this week, per new Labor Department data — still in line with pre-pandemic levels and lower than economists expected. It’s another sign of economic health, but also of ongoing labor shortages. More from Yahoo

SHORT SUPPLY — NYT’s Peter Goodman tells the story of a Kansas City, Kan., shipping terminal, which “highlights a troubling reality in the global economy: So many unknowns dog the supply chain that any semblance of normalcy remains far-off, even as some of the chaos abates and shipping prices edge down.”

CONGRESS

NDAA LATEST — Part of the holdup in passing the defense authorization bill through the Senate is Democrats blocking an amendment over Uyghur forced labor “in response to pressure from Biden administration officials who fear the bill would torpedo climate negotiations with the Chinese government,” The Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman reported this morning. The bill from Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) has been the subject of much debate, as Senate Dems call it a poison pill for procedural reasons. Pelosi this morning forcefully defended her record on human rights in China. Andrew Desiderio and Heather Caygle break down everything you need to know in this complex fight

POLITICS ROUNDUP

KNOWING PETER WELCH — The Democratic congressman is the front-runner for Vermont’s next Senate seat, and in his first post-announcement national interview, he tells The New Republic’s Grace Segers that he wants to back the Biden agenda at “an all-hands-on-deck moment” for democracy. He also talks about Medicare expansion (pro) and the filibuster (anti).

2022 WATCH — NYT’s Jonathan Martin sat down with BRIAN STRYKER, the Democratic pollster whose much-discussed autopsy of Virginia Gov.-elect GLENN YOUNGKIN’s victory sounded major alarms for Democrats. “We’ve got a national branding problem that is probably deeper than a lot of people suspect,” Stryker says. “Our party thinks maybe some things we’re saying aren’t cutting through, but I think it’s much deeper than that. … People think we’re more focused on social issues than the economy — and the economy is the No. 1 issue right now.”

THE STATE OF DEMOCRACY — Georgia election workers RUBY FREEMAN and SHAYE MOSS are suing The Gateway Pundit for defamation after the far-right website published false conspiracy theories about them in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election, per NBC. The mother and daughter became the center of a conservative media frenzy, and one says in the lawsuit she had to “flee her home for two months at the recommendation of the FBI.”

THE PANDEMIC

OMICRON DETECTED IN MINNESOTA — A second case of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been found in the U.S., this time in a vaccinated Minnesota man who developed mild symptoms Nov. 22, shortly after traveling to New York City for an anime convention. More from CNN

THE VIEW FROM 1600 PENN — White House press secretary JEN PSAKI said the new variant has not yet altered Biden’s travel plans to sell his agenda around the country: “Our plans are moving full speed ahead at this point.”

— CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins offer an inside look at how the White House has scrambled to wrap its head around the variant, as Biden tells his top officials that he wants to “talk in a language that the American people can understand about how this affects their lives.”

POLICY CORNER

ICYMI — Even as the Biden administration seeks to end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers at the southern border, it has struck a deal with Mexico to restart the program after having been forced to do so by court order, per WaPo’s Nick Miroff and Kevin Sieff.

INFRASTRUCTURE YEAR — Bloomberg’s Keith Laing has an interesting look at an underreported component of the new bipartisan infrastructure law: It lowers the age for some truck drivers to make interstate trips from 21 to 18 in a three-year pilot program. That could be a boon for a nation grappling with driver shortages and supply chain squeezes. But it’s also provoking some worries about safety, given that “teenagers crash at four times the rate of older drivers.”

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

CONTEMPT LATEST — The next committee vote on holding JEFFREY CLARK in contempt of Congress has been postponed, per Kyle Cheney, to allow Clark the opportunity to “formally assert his Fifth Amendment rights on Saturday.”

THE SUBPOENA WALTZ — In a new letter to the Jan. 6 committee, former NYPD chief BERNIE KERIK said he’ll only cooperate with their document requests if they allow him to testify publicly rather than behind closed doors, Betsy Woodruff Swan reports in Congress Minutes. The letter

TRUMP CARDS

TRUMP INC. — DONALD TRUMP could make out with $100 million or more in profits from the sale of the Trump hotel in D.C., report WaPo’s Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahrenthold. “That would provide Trump with a rate of return that many hedge fund managers would envy, thanks to a market that is snapping up hotels in the expectation the pandemic will wane and travel will roar back.”

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

NEW SANCTIONS — The U.S. and other countries together imposed new sanctions on Belarus today, trying to pressure the authoritarian government on corruption, human rights and the recent migrant crisis. Reuters breaks down the details

TO RUSSIA, WITH ACRIMONY — Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and Russian Foreign Minister SERGEY LAVROV traded warnings over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine — and NATO’s attempts to stop it — in a Stockholm meeting today. Latest from WaPo

BEYOND THE BELTWAY

AFTERNOON READ — WaPo’s Emily Wax-Thibodeaux goes on the road with MEERA SHAH, one of dozens of doctors who regularly travel hundreds of miles to perform abortions in states where access to the procedure is very limited. A possible Supreme Court ruling that would allow states to ban abortion looms, of course, but she writes that “even if Roe v. Wade is upheld, abortion rights advocates worry there will not be enough doctors to perform the procedure.”

— In Illinois, abortion providers are prepping to absorb a wave of patients seeking abortions from neighboring conservative states if the Supreme Court strikes down or pares back Roe, WSJ’s Jennifer Calfas reports.

BIG INVESTIGATION — In a distressing new installment of the AP’s ongoing investigation into weapons that go missing, Kristin Hall, Justin Pritchard and James LaPorta turn their attention to military explosives that turn up in the civilian world, with sometimes fatal results: “Hundreds — and possibly thousands — of armor-piercing grenades, hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, as well as land mines and rockets have been stolen from or lost by the U.S. armed forces over the past decade … Still more explosives were reported missing and later recovered.”

PLAYBOOKERS

OUT AND ABOUT — A group of powerful women feted new AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler at a dinner Wednesday night hosted by Zoë Baird at her Kalorama home, with passed hors d’oeuvres, sparkling water, white wine, Champagne and fist-bump greetings. SPOTTED: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, DNI Avril Haines, Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, national climate adviser Gina McCarthy, Donna Brazile, Emily Cain, Stephanie Cutter, Fran Drescher, Fatima Goss Graves, Anna Greenberg, Amy Liu, British Ambassador Karen Pierce, Tina Tchen, Amy Walter, Randi Weingarten and Judy Woodruff.

— SPOTTED at the Suspicious Package concert Wednesday night on the roof of the Eaton Hotel for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung holiday gluhwein reception with band members Tim Burger, Bryan Greene, Josh Meyer, Christina Sevilla and Tom Toles: Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), John Emerson, Knut Dethlefsen, Spencer Boyer, Jane Harman, Geoff Earle, Nikki Schwab, Nihal Krishan, Neil Grace, Sara Cook, Raquel Krähenbühl, Tim Noviello, Bruce Kieloch, Steve Rochlin, Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, Philippa Hughes, Adam Ruben, Bay Fang, Nadia Bilbassy, Mary Jordan, Kevin Sullivan and Matt Duss.

MEDIA MOVES — Tanya Ballard Brown has been named executive editor of Government Executive. She most recently has been senior editor at NPR. … The New Yorker announced several new additions: Clare Malone has been named a staff writer, writing about the media business, journalism and politics. She most recently was a senior political writer at FiveThirtyEight. Pulitzer Prize finalist Anand Gopal, Graciela Mochkofsky and Rachel Monroe have been named contributing writers. …

… Brie Jackson will join NBC News Channel as a Washington correspondent. She most recently has been a national correspondent at Hearst Television. … Emily Knapp is now Washington editor at Newsweek. She previously was senior politics editor at PBS NewsHour, and is a POLITICO alum.

TRANSITIONS — Retired Marine Corps Col. Dan Greenwood is joining BGR Group’s defense and commerce practices as SVP. He most recently was Indo-Pacific strategy/posture director at Marine Corps headquarters, and previously was detailed to the White House. … Forbes Tate Partners is adding Andres Ramirez as an SVP and Colin Finnegan and Will May as senior directors in the public affairs practice. Ramirez previously led the Ramirez Group and is a Harry Reid alum. Finnegan previously was at Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, and May was at Firehouse Strategies.

BONUS BIRTHDAY: George Mason’s John Hollis