President Obama worked the phones late Thursday in an attempt to get Democrats to support a spending bill that has yet to receive enough support to avoid a government shutdown.
“The president is making calls and so are other members of the White House staff,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said on MSNBC.
Just hours earlier, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., came out against the spending bill and urged fellow Democrats to follow suit. Progressives are trying to strip the bill of provisions that would roll back the Dodd-Frank Act and campaign finance laws.
The rare White House-Pelosi split adds drama to the funding fight just hours before the government could shut down.
For its part, the White House argues Democrats are giving away negotiating power ahead of Republicans taking control of both chambers of Congress in 2015.
“They’re going to have even less leverage,” Earnest said of Democrats next year.
Earnest said the White House supported the legislation because it didn’t affect Obamacare, Environmental Protection Agency regulations or Obama’s executive action to spare up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
“It’s not perfect. We didn’t get everything we wanted,” Earnest said. “Republicans are in the majority in the House. We’re going to have to compromise.”
