Presented by BP.

Good morning, everyone. I'm playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Monday, December 16th.

And here's what's thriving the day. In just five days, lawmakers are slated to leave town for the two-week holiday break, but before they do, a number of key items remain outstanding, including,

of course, the pesky business of passing government funding to avert a shutdown the Friday

before Christmas.

We were expecting texts last night, but it never came, thanks to some last minute hiccups.

A deal has not yet been reached, as of this morning.

The big issue right now, Speaker

Mike Johnson is facing a brewing rebellion from Farm District Republicans after congressional

leaders failed to secure an agreement to add economic aid for farmers to the next stopgap spending

bill. That was first reported by our colleague Meredith Lee Hill. The threat of a new wave

of GOP defections amongst these

Farm District Republicans basically presents a fresh new challenge for Johnson. He's already

navigating a narrow majority in opposition from his right flank as he tries to fund the government

before midnight on December 21st. That's because conservative Republicans just don't vote for

CRs. That means Johnson is going to have to turn to Democrats to get the votes to pass this on a fast track, which means two-thirds are required for passage.

But the biggest conversation in town right now is still centered on Republicans' strategy for passing Trump's agenda next year.

That's right. Discussions about reconciliation dominated the Army-Navy game over the weekend least I'm told from multiple sources who were there or who are familiar with what happened.

While Trump's top aides endorsed incoming Majority Leader John Thune's proposal for a two-track reconciliation process that tackles border first, then taxes later in the year.

Speaker Mike Johnson actually showed up to the game

armed with a slew of new ideas. Thune was there as well, we'll note, and while we hear that

Johnson wasn't trying to talk Trump off of the Thune plan, he did want to make sure Trump had all

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