NEWS: Inside the deal to open DHS

IN THIS EDITION

Inside the path to funding DHS

The Mullin era arrives at DHS

WH expected to announce King Charles visit

El-Sayed: Statement on synagogue attack was a ‘risk’

THE TOP

Inside the path to funding DHS

Happy Tuesday morning.

For the first time in more than a month, there’s optimism that the Senate and the White House can finally find a path to reopening the Department of Homeland Security. Key Senate Republicans returned from the White House late Monday with a noticeably upbeat demeanor over the state of the talks with President Donald Trump, who had just rebuffed a GOP-backed off-ramp.

The framework under discussion would fund all of DHS except for ICE’s migrant removal operations, and could eventually include some reforms that Democrats have been demanding.

Republicans would then try to fund the rest of ICE via a party-line reconciliation bill.

GOP leaders would also try to use reconciliation to enact elements of the SAVE America Act, which mandates photo IDs and citizenship verification for federal elections. Trump has called this bill his top legislative priority.

This framework is similar to the outlines of an agreement that Senate Majority Leader John Thune discussed with Trump on Sunday — a strategy that the president rejected. Trump has insisted on tying the SAVE America Act to DHS funding, complicating matters even further. Thune said this was “not realistic.”

It’s too early to say whether this DHS framework will satisfy Senate Democrats. There are several key details that still need to be ironed out. But many Democrats pointed to what they see as a sense of urgency to get something done, especially as nightmarish TSA security lines cause chaos for millions of air travellers.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), a key negotiator who attended the White House meeting with Trump, said she planned to be “working through the night” to try to “land this plane.” We’re told that appropriators are actively discussing a path forward and were exchanging legislative text last night.

Another important dynamic: Senators are eager to leave Washington at the end of the week for the scheduled two-week recess, especially after being forced to stay in town all weekend. And Democrats have long been pushing to fund non-ICE portions of DHS, such as TSA, the Coast Guard and FEMA.

“This is significant movement,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said of the potential off-ramp. “We have a dispute about ICE practices. We don’t have a dispute about funding TSA. We don’t have a dispute about funding the Coast Guard or FEMA.”

A number of rank-and-file Republicans have echoed Trump’s message that they shouldn’t exit Washington until DHS is reopened. It’s now Day 38 of the DHS shutdown.

“We are not gonna leave this place until we have DHS funded,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told us after last night’s Senate GOP leadership meeting.

In addition, there’s the question of how all this will impact the Senate’s current days-long floor debate on the SAVE America Act. Thune has said he’d eventually tee up a procedural vote that would effectively end that process. Conservatives and Trump have been pressuring Thune to keep the Senate in session and wear Democrats down.

The emerging framework. There’s enough in this proposed outline for everyone to hate. Hardline Republicans will say that their party has given up on taking the fight to Democrats on the SAVE America Act and failed to hold the line on DHS funding.

Democrats will gripe that the bulk of their list of more than a dozen demands to reform ICE has gone unfilled, and that funding the rest of DHS removes some of their leverage. This will be especially acute in the House, where Democrats have been let down by the Senate time and time again.

Yet Democrats are also certain to demand that they still get some low-hanging policy wins out of this fight, such as money for body cameras and enhanced identification for ICE agents.

“The folks in ICE who have been detaining people — I didn’t give them any more money,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said of how he’d sell this type of deal to Democratic voters. “And I got A, B, C, D [reforms].”

A major implication of a potential deal here is that it nearly ensures that Republicans will have to pursue a second reconciliation package over the next eight months — much to the delight of Speaker Mike Johnson and hardline House Republicans.

Republicans will have a battle among themselves over the finer points of the package, which could include everything from a $200 billion defense spending package, the SAVE America Act, ICE funding and a hodgepodge of other Republican policies.

“It’ll take a little longer,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who’s been pushing the reconciliation idea. “But we could do it. If you want to throw in the SAVE Act, I’m fine with that. I don’t know how feasible that is in terms of the whip count.”

Lankford noted that it takes “about a month” to do budget reconciliation, “so it’s not something you could start and do fast.”

Plus, there’s no guarantee of success. It’ll be up to the Senate parliamentarian — Elizabeth MacDonough — to OK the use of reconciliation to enact the voter ID and citizenship verification provisions in the SAVE America Act. Many Republicans privately view this as highly unlikely. It also raises the possibility of a vote to overrule the parliamentarian, though Thune has cast doubt on this idea in the past.

Confirmation vote: Mullin was confirmed by a 54-45 vote. Two Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.) — crossed the aisle to vote for Mullin, while GOP Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) voted no. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-N.M.) didn’t vote. Mullin’s successor in the Senate will be sworn in this afternoon. More on Mullin below.

War powers. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) plans to force a vote on his Iran war powers resolution Tuesday evening. Debate is slated to begin around 5:15 p.m., followed by the vote — though the timing could shift. The move comes nearly a week after the Senate blocked a separate Democratic push to curb Trump’s ongoing military campaign against Iran.

— Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss, Jake Sherman and Briana Reilly

TOMORROW: We’ll sit down with Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the news of the day and electric grid reliability. RSVP now to save your seat!

THE SENATE

The Mullin era arrives at DHS

After just over three years in the Senate, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) — a former plumber and mixed martial arts fighter — has been tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Now the Oklahoma Republican is in for a massive test as the department’s ninth secretary. DHS is facing serious problems, both political and practical. The department is more than a month into a shutdown and reeling from scandals under former Secretary Kristi Noem. TSA has been particularly hard hit by the current standoff, losing hundreds of employees.

Senate Republicans have been hopeful that installing Mullin at DHS will bolster bipartisan talks to resolve the 38-day standoff, which is centered on ICE and CBP’s role in President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown.

As we noted above, those negotiations now seem to be making progress. GOP senators are floating a plan that would involve funding all of DHS except ICE enforcement and removal operations. But they don’t have a deal yet.

“I’d assume he’d jump in with both feet,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said. “That’s typical Markwayne. When there’s a challenge, he wants to talk to everybody and try to figure out how we get it unstuck.”

Mullin, 48, also has a uniquely close relationship with Trump, which could ultimately help the president get behind the proposed deal that Mullin’s now-former colleagues are trying to craft.

If congressional leaders and the White House are able to strike an agreement, it’ll be on Mullin to do the high-stakes job of implementing it. Democrats will be watching closely, particularly on how any changes to ICE operations are rolled out.

Mullin has relationships all across the Capitol after 13 years in the House and Senate. Mullin fashioned himself over the last few years as the Senate’s informal liaison with the House, where he has close GOP ties from his time as a member. Notably, Mullin has been working behind the scenes in that capacity of late, hashing out a proposal on ICE reforms with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), the NYT reported.

But Democrats are expecting tangible changes to how DHS operates.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said whether Mullin’s leadership could shift the dynamics in the DHS talks all depends “on whether he agrees to commit to reform and change at the agency.”

All but two Senate Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Martin Heinrich (N.M.) — voted against Mullin’s nomination.

A new face in the Senate. Mullin’s exit for DHS also means that Oklahoma will soon have a new junior senator.

Oklahoma GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt will need to appoint the replacement, who will serve through this year. Senate GOP leaders are planning to hold the swearing-in for the appointee at 3:30 p.m. today, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans.

Stitt is expected to tap energy executive Alan Armstrong. NOTUS first reported the pick. Armstrong wouldn’t be able to run for election to the seat in November.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) is in the race to fill the Senate seat in 2027 and has locked up endorsements from Trump and Senate GOP leaders.

— Laura Weiss, Andrew Desiderio, John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman

YOU’LL BE BACK

WH expected to announce King Charles visit

News: The Trump administration is expected to announce this week that King Charles III will be in Washington next month for a state visit, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the planning.

There will be a state dinner for the king. It’s also widely expected on Capitol Hill that Charles will address a joint meeting of Congress when he’s in D.C.

The House will now be in session the last week of April, a change from the previously announced schedule.

The visit is in honor of the United States’ 250th birthday. President Donald Trump visited London in September. And Speaker Mike Johnson traveled there in January, where he became the first speaker to address the parliament.

The last time a British royal addressed Congress was May 1991, when Charles’ mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, spoke to a packed House chamber.

Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, addressed a joint session in 2009, the last British official to do so.

– Jake Sherman and Laura Weiss

MICHIGAN SENATE

El-Sayed: Statement on synagogue attack was a ‘risk’

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed acknowledged on an internal campaign call that his lengthy statement after the Temple Israel attack this month was a “risk” that “really worried” his team.

One day after Ayman Ghazali’s thwarted terrorist attack at a West Bloomfield, Mich., synagogue March 12, El-Sayed released a four-minute video condemning the attack while tying Ghazali’s actions to Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon.

“A week earlier, an airstrike killed his niece and nephew. Imagine if that had never happened. Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no airstrikes in Lebanon. Imagine if his family had never died,” El-Sayed said.

“We can and must condemn the attack on Temple Israel, and we can and must condemn the violence 6,000 miles away,” El-Sayed continued.

Reflecting on the statement during an organizing call on March 18, El-Sayed admitted his take was controversial.

“It was a risk,” El-Sayed said. “All of our team was really worried about saying something, but leadership is being willing to say the thing if you believe it to be true that nobody else is going to say.”

An El-Sayed aide said the issue is a complicated one in Michigan, which has significant Muslim and Arab-American communities. El-Sayed has also been highly critical of Israel’s long military campaign in Gaza.

“We understood that putting out a nuanced statement opened the door for bad-faith critiques, but decided that it was important to give voice to the complexities that so many Michiganders are trying to navigate,” El-Sayed spokesperson Roxie Richner said in a statement.

El-Sayed has staked out a position as the most progressive candidate in his three-way Senate primary against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. El-Sayed is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), backs Medicare For All and has said Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza.

While Stevens is an AIPAC ally and is courting center-left voters, McMorrow and El-Sayed have sparred when appealing to the party’s left flank. We reported how El-Sayed accused McMorrow of copying his homework on key policy positions.

Polling averages of the primary have Stevens and McMorrow within a point of each other, with El-Sayed trailing behind in third.

— Max Cohen

…AND THERE’S MORE

Marcus Childress, who was special counsel for Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on the House Judiciary Committee, is leaving to become partner and co-head of the congressional investigations practice at Akin.

– Max Cohen

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