The House and Senate are in session this week. The House returns Tuesday. The Senate, which has been in all weekend, is scheduled to confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) as Department of Homeland Security secretary tonight. President Donald Trump is headlining the NRCC’s big March dinner in D.C. Wednesday night.
Trump said Saturday night that if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by today, U.S. forces will blow up “their various power plants” beginning with the largest ones. Iran has threatened to retaliate. Much of Tehran has been plunged into darkness following Israeli airstrikes.
The reaction on Capitol Hill to Trump’s threats was muted, although Republicans continue to back the president on Iran. But this would be a dramatic escalation of the conflict as Trump has ordered Marine ground troops to the region.
News: With the DHS shutdown now in its 37th day, Senate Majority Leader John Thune approached Trump with a new proposal on Sunday — at the urging of his Senate Republican colleagues and even some White House aides.
Thune told Trump that Senate Republicans would support funding all of DHS except ICE, the agency at the center of the bitter partisan dispute over Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to senators and aides.
ICE funding could be handled later in a party-line reconciliation bill. Democrats would accept the offer, the South Dakota Republican informed the president.
Democrats wouldn’t get some of their chief demands — banning masks for federal agents or requiring judicial warrants — if reconciliation were used. Plus, TSA agents would get their paychecks and the security-line madness at airports would end.
But Trump said no, according to multiple sources. The president wants Republicans to stay in D.C. and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding and the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bill.
Not only that, Trump warned that he’d publicly slam Senate Republicans if they left town for the upcoming recess. Trump also said he’d invite all the GOP senators and their families for Easter dinner at the White House. Some Republicans took that as a threat, not a reward.
In a Sunday night Truth Social post, Trump made clear his position: “I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.’”
Trump added: “Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Trump-Thune exchange shows how differently Republicans view the growing crisis over DHS, especially the chaos at many of America’s airports.
Trump has ordered ICE agents to be deployed at airports starting today. The TSA absences have meant growing, hours-long security delays at some of the nation’s busiest airports.
A lot of Republicans don’t like the idea of ICE agents patrolling airports, although they won’t complain in public. Even ICE officials were caught by surprise by Trump’s Saturday night order, according to CBS News. Some Democrats are privately giddy over the prospect, believing it will cause even more problems.
The real key here is that Trump believes he and Republicans are winning the DHS battle, while a lot of GOP lawmakers aren’t sure that’s the case.
“It’s not ICE’s mission to be there,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters on Sunday, warning about “additional tension” at already tense airports. Murkowski wants a DHS funding bill to be passed right now.
“It’s a mess,” said another Republican senator who didn’t want to be named. “No one is quite sure what’s going on.”
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has been in the middle of bipartisan DHS funding talks, acknowledged that Republicans have considered an “Everything but ICE” option to break the logjam.
“That is being discussed,” Collins said.
But Collins then raised the issue of how Homeland Security Investigations — an ICE unit that handles child-trafficking cases and other high-priority matters — wouldn’t get funded. Senate Republicans could propose cutting out only the money for removal operations instead and funding the rest of ICE and DHS.
“You really want to stop Homeland Security Investigations? That’s child trafficking, it’s drug smuggling, it’s counterfeit goods,” Collins added. “I don’t think we want to cut off Homeland Security Investigations.”
More bipartisan DHS negotiations are expected today, aides on both sides said.
GOP aides also said White House border czar Tom Homan may meet with Senate Republicans this week.
FISA. Aside from the DHS chaos, it’s less than a month from the nation’s foreign intelligence surveillance authority expiring.
Speaker Mike Johnson and his House Republican leadership team were planning to bring a clean extension of FISA’s Section 702 to the floor this week. But on Friday, GOP leaders decided to cancel any vote on the bill until after the two-week recess, which begins Friday.
Hardline conservatives have two issues with FISA. Several of them won’t vote to allow Section 702 to move forward until the Senate passes SAVE or the legislation is otherwise moving. Other Republicans have issues with FISA as currently written and want reforms to the program.
Johnson had no prayer of being able to pass the bill this week, since Democrats wouldn’t have helped the GOP with a rule or rounded up support to pass it under suspension.
We’ll be curious to see how Johnson plans to get out of this. But, as of now, he’ll have to pass the FISA renewal bill the week of April 13, just days before the program’s expiration. And in many ways, that could help instill some urgency in a reluctant House Republican Conference.
