The NPR Politics Podcast - The Senate DHS funding deal fell apart. Now what?

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

There was a glimmer of hope for the Department of Homeland Security after the Senate passed a funding bill early Friday morning. Then the House rejected the deal, and Congress left town. We discuss what comes next and who voters will blame for the standstill.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the Empire Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And today on the show, we're going to be talking about the continuing saga of funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Let's start with Friday, though, when it seemed like the Senate had a deal that might solve this entire thing. But Sam, tell us about the Senate compromise first before we get into what happened to it. So sometime after 2 a.m. on Friday morning, the Senate came from. together on a deal that would fund almost all of the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA and the Coast Guard, but it would exclude funding for immigration and customs enforcement and border patrol. This is something that Democrats had been refusing to fund after the shootings of those two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers. And Republicans had pushed back on not funding DHS fully, but as lines at airports got worse over the course of the week, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were able to come together around this deal.

Yeah. Can you tell me what was in there about, like really the center of all this, which is the reforms that Democrats wanted to happen at ICE? What was in the plan to deal with all that? Nothing. This deal included none of the policy changes that Democrats had been pushing for over the course of these last several weeks. What Democrats did get out of this is no new funding for ICE and for Border Patrol, but no policy changes specifically. All right. So what happened in the House? So there was all this optimism that a deal was at hand. The Senate actually left town for a two-week recess. But then when it got over to the House side, very quickly it became apparent that House Republicans were not going to be behind this deal, particularly conservatives in the House Republican caucus because this did not include the Save America Act, this voting law overhaul that President Trump and his allies in Congress have been pushing. And so in Instead, House Republicans said they were going to put forward a 60-day extension of DHS funding that would include money for ICE and customs and border protection. It has been made very clear by Democrats in the Senate that that is unacceptable to them. And the minority party in the Senate does have some power.

And so right now this has ended up at a standstill. And Congress is not in session for two weeks. So this shutdown is going to continue for a little while longer, at least. Yeah. I want to talk about like where the policy. of all this stands now. The main way in which the general public has been feeling the effects of this shutdown is by those record long lines at airport security lines. That's because the transportation and security administration workers are not getting paid right now. So you're

seeing a lot of them either call out sick or completely just quit. And President Trump in the meantime has stepped in with his own fix to this particular problem. Can you explain what he did? Donald Trump issued what's called a presidential memorandum where he said that there was emergency situation and that allows him to order the TSA agents to be paid, presumably out of money that DHS got in the one big, beautiful bill. They got a tremendous amount of money, $75 billion. So if that goes through, and I don't see anybody with the standing or inclination to challenge that in court, the TSA agents will start getting paid. The White House has said maybe as early as today. And the lines are

should disappear. If they do, that certainly takes away one of the biggest political pressure points for Congress. If they're no long TSA lines, there's no real motivation for them to come to a compromise because they haven't been able to yet. We've got the president, a Republican Congress who cannot figure out how to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah. And back to Trump's fix on all this. Do we have a sense of like how this would actually work or whether this will actually work? You mean signing the order and getting the paid? It should work. I mean, like I said, who is going to challenge this in court?

The Department of Homeland Security has a tremendous amount of money. That's not the problem. They have money that was already appropriated to them in the one big, beautiful bill. What they don't have is this year's appropriation. Even though DHS is without funding for this fiscal year, they have tons of money to work with. So ICE has been able to continue their duties throughout all of this, unlike some other agencies where workers are going unpaid. And so, you know, even as Democrats try and withhold money for ICE, it's not really doing much to prevent ICE agents from doing their job. And presumably,

some of those funds would be tapped to pay the TSA agents. The bottom line, though, politically is that Democrats did not get the reforms in ICE they wanted and Republicans didn't get the Save Act, which is what Donald Trump has said is really his one and only legislative priority. So both parties end up without meeting their political goals. Voters are even more cynical and disgusted with the dysfunction of Congress, but maybe in the end they won't have to stand in a long line at an airport. All right. We're going to take a quick break more in a moment. And we're back.

And Mara, Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House, but they still can't seem to get a funding deal across the line. Why is it that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker, Mike Johnson, and the president. can't seem to get on the same page about this? Well, that is an excellent question, and I really think that it kind of illustrates how dysfunctional Washington has become. But I think the main reason is that President Trump is really not invested in doing what past presidents have done, rolling up his sleeves, calling in the leaders of both chambers to the White House, especially when they're both from his own party and trying to hammer out a compromise. Donald Trump didn't do that. He didn't seem interested in doing that. And as a matter of fact, when he was asked about the various compromises that were floating around to get the DHS fully funded, he didn't seem to like any of them.

Here's what he said. Well, I don't want to comment until I see the deal. But as you know, they're negotiating a deal. I guess they're getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it. Yeah, not happy with it. I can't think of a single big compromise or compromise. problem solved in Washington that didn't involve the president getting involved, especially with members of

his own party. They are so loyal to him. And if he wanted this funding to happen, he could have hammered out a compromise. But he doesn't seem motivated to do that. But Sam, like, where does this leave congressional leaders? Like, what kind of position are they in with the president saying, like, there's like no deal here that I think I'm going to like? I mean, Republicans in this Congress have really taken their cues from President Trump when it comes to deciding a policy direction. And in the absence of that, that opens up the space for disagreement between the House and the Senate. You know, we're not really talking in this particular moment about disagreements between Democrats and Republicans. This now is a fight between House Republicans and Senate Republicans.

Yeah. I want to talk about the big political question here, which is like who is to blame or at least who voters will blame in all this. Can I hear from both of you of like where you think blame lies now or at least from the perspective of voters, like who's to blame? Well, you know, in the past, when there were government shutdowns or mini ones like this, the party in power usually suffered more politically. They're responsible. Republicans control all three branches of government. In this case, I think that voters are so cynical and fed up with Congress. I don't see either party getting more blame or credit for this mess. I really don't. I think when lines go away at the airports, presumably they will once TSA agents get paid. This is going to just. recede from voters' memories. I would also just point out that last fall, we were asking voters who they blamed for that record-long shutdown. And I think it's pretty likely that a lot of those people don't even remember that shutdown at this point. Think of all of the stuff that has happened between

then and now. We've had the fight over health subsidies. We've had conflict in Iran, Venezuela, ICE. And as Mara is saying, think of all of the things that could happen in the next couple of months before voters are actually thinking about who they're going to elect in the midterm elections. Yeah, and how salient a fight over funding is compared to things like what's happening in Iran, right? Look, it's very hard to make predictions, especially about the future. But I would say that if you really want to look for some kind of a candidate that will prosper in this, it's somebody who's running against an incumbent. And that's about as simple as it could get. Yeah, I mean, there have been so many moments in this Congress where it looks like maybe Republicans and Democrats, a House and

the Senate could come together around some kind of solution to a problem that polls suggest the public wants to be solved, like the expiring health care subsidies, like reforms to tactics of federal immigration officers. And then in the end, that deal ultimately crumbles. Yeah. And as time passes, I mean, I assume that this becomes a bigger problem mostly for Democrats, because, you know, at the core of this dispute, are these reforms Democrats are demanding for ICE. You know, that was after federal immigration officers killed two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year. I do wonder from both of you, as those deaths get further in the rearview mirror, do Democrats lose some public support for their stance? Does this get harder to fight for?

I don't know. The things they're fighting for are pretty popular. The top three reforms are no more masks worn by ICE agents, judicial warrants before they go into somebody's home, and body cancer. cameras. But I think for the most part, Democrats can say, hey, we were for these things that most Americans want and the Republicans wouldn't do it. Yeah. And I do wonder, Sam, from the list of reforms that Mara just talked about, like, what has buy-in from Republicans and where, you know, is there a tougher climb? The White House has indicated some openness to some of these policy changes that Mara mentioned, specifically requiring Officer Warren body cameras, preventing immigration enforcement operations in so-called sensitive places like hospitals and schools.

But the White House has really pushed back on other changes, the requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and businesses, the banning of masks. And Democrats had really yet to convince Republicans in the White House to come on board for what they consider to be non-negotiables. Though I should say that Senate Majority Leader John Thune last week said that the time for negotiating over these is over. Democrats should have taken. in what was on the table, that they were not going to ever get some of these things. And so it's unclear now, even with this funding fight still ongoing, whether this reform conversation will come back into being or Congress is going to be entering a midterm cycle

with no changes having been initiated. Well, a lot to watch there. All right, let's leave it there for today. Before we go, a request, if you like this show, please share it with a friend. And make sure you don't miss an episode by hitting the follow button wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Sam Greenglass. I cover Congress.

And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.