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Hey, good morning, playbookers. I'm Raguman Ovalin.

It's Friday and the good news and no government shutdown, but the bad news, plenty of deadlines left.

This is your Politico Playbook Daily briefing.

Congress avoided a government shutdown last night after conservatives in the Senate dropped their demands

to next President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates in the funding bill, and when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave them a way out.

All 100 senators agreed late Thursday night to quickly proceed to a bill funding the government through February 18th.

The breakthrough came after Schumer gave Republicans a vote that needed just a simple majority

threshold to defund federal vaccine mandates.

Two Republicans were absent at the time, meaning that even if Senator Joe Manchin cited

with Republicans, the amendment would be defeated.

That vote failed 50 to 48.

Conservatives will argue they got something out of this

drama, a vote on their issue. In reality, it was a face-saving measure. The far right started out

demanding that Congress effectively scuttled the mandates, then reduced their ask to a mere vote they

knew would fail, that ensured smooth passage of a continuing resolution of full 30 hours before the

shutdown deadline. Wow, okay, overachievers. Another reality here, their shutdown threat was never

going to give them what they wanted. Schumer was all too willing to embrace the showdown over

vaccines, considering the threat of the Omicron variant. Plus, fellow Republicans blasted their demand as

irresponsible and pointless. One thing the right did get out of this, though, was attention.

I mean, we're talking about him here. Their protest was front and center for days and will be again

next week when Senator Mike Braun forces another vote on the issue. They also demonstrated to

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