Shutdown update. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security ran out Friday evening. In conversations with lawmakers and aides on both sides of the aisle, there doesn’t seem to be any real rush to end the impasse.
Remember that DHS has more than 260,000 employees across an array of agencies. Somewhere around 90% of DHS employees are classified as essential, including 95% of TSA agents, most of the Coast Guard and Secret Service. These federal employees will work without pay throughout the funding lapse, so it may be some time until the public feels the impacts of the DHS shutdown.
The White House and Senate Democrats have been trading offers on DHS funding over the last week or so. If you ask Trump administration officials, they submitted an offer that was about as far as they can go on changes to ICE operations during President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown. Senate Democrats have said that the White House isn’t serious about meeting their 10 (or 17) demands.
There are divergent political considerations here. The White House believes that the political situation has improved for Republicans following the uproar over two deadly shootings by federal officers during ICE protests in Minnesota last month. Democrats say the public is overwhelmingly backing them up pushing for ICE reforms.
The House and Senate are on recess, with 48 to 72 hour rules to come back if there is an agreement. But there’s no chance that the shutdown will end before Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.
Presidential Palooza. This has to be one of the weirdest, most unpleasant Presidents Days ever for several of the current and former holders of the world’s most powerful job.
Trump will start the day in Palm Beach, which likely means some golf before he and First Lady Melania Trump head back to Washington tonight.
Trump is mired in a very public fight with former President Barack Obama after Trump posted a racist video of the 44th president and former First Lady Michelle Obama on Feb. 5. White House officials initially denied it was racist. But even Republicans publicly condemned the video, which means it was extraordinarily, shockingly bad, and the post was later deleted.
Trump, being Trump, said he did nothing wrong by posting the video. “I didn’t make a mistake,” Trump told reporters. Trump also keeps posting on Truth Social about “Barack Hussein Obama” while making noises about Obama’s alleged role in conspiring against him during the 2016 election, which will never be over.
Obama, being Obama, finally responded a week after Trump’s original racist post by denouncing the “clown show” of American politics, although he never uttered the words “Donald Trump” or “racist” or anything like that.
“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office,” Obama said in the most Obama comment ever.
Obama has semi-waded into the battles over greenhouse gases regulation and the SAVE Act, both huge issues. But we’re not sure how the genteel Obama would fare in the Trump era, when every Democrat is required by party rules to drop F-bombs when referring to Trump (We’re kidding. Maybe.)
Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton faces an unprecedented deposition next week by investigators for the House Oversight Committee over his ties to disgraced financier and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also be deposed in the probe, although the ex-senator says she knows nothing about Epstein’s criminal activities.
Both Clintons fought the subpoenas from the Oversight panel for months, but they caved when it became clear that House Republicans were prepared to push through criminal contempt citations against them with bipartisan support. The Clintons seem to have realized — as they had been warned for months — that younger Democrats have no allegiance to them and wanted to keep the Epstein issue viable to use against Trump, even if that meant throwing the 42nd president overboard.
Former President Joe Biden will head to South Carolina next week to celebrate the sixth anniversary of his critical victory in the Palmetto State’s Democratic primary. That win helped Biden overcome a serious challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and launched him on the path to the Oval Office.
While Trump continues to bash Biden as “Crooked Joe Biden” and “the worst President in American History,” some recent polls show Biden was more popular than Trump after one year in office.
Which leads us finally to former President George W. Bush. He has a Substack now. He goes to basketball games (like Obama, but not really.) Otherwise, the 43rd president keeps a very low profile. Just as he likes it.
