Johnson scrambles as Trump, Senate Republicans pressure House to fund DHS
Congressional Republicans entered the record-breaking Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown united — 75 days later, and they are increasingly at odds over how to end it.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is now floating a change to the Senate’s DHS bill funding most of the department after declining to put the measure on the floor for more than a month.
The new demand comes as the department’s vital security role was spotlighted on Saturday when the Secret Service stopped a gunman from storming the ballroom where he allegedly planned to assassinate President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet.
The Secret Service is among several agencies under the DHS umbrella that are currently operating without full-year funding. The assassination scare notably spurred Trump to demand that DHS funding, and the forthcoming budget reconciliation process, be wrapped up soon.
Now, Johnson’s new tactic is to modify the Senate bill, which he claims "has some problematic language because it was haphazardly drafted."
"We have a modified version that I think is going to be much better for both chambers," Johnson told reporters on Monday.
"It makes sure that we’re not going to orphan two of the primary agencies of DHS," he added. "We have to make sure that immigration law is enforced and that the border is safe and secure. Democrats don’t want to have any part of that, so unfortunately, we have to do that on our own."
But the White House, in a memo to House Republicans obtained by Fox News Digital, demanded that Johnson pass the Senate's bill as is, and warned that unless the House took action, the remaining DHS funding would soon dry up.
"It is imperative that Congress immediately fund DHS and its critical operations to protect the homeland," the memo stated.
The Senate bill and a separate budget reconciliation bill funding immigration enforcement are part of a two-track approach that congressional Republicans are pursuing to end the funding lapse.
Johnson has long reflected the view of many in the GOP by voicing objections to the Senate bill because it zeroes out funding for ICE and CBP.
But Senate Republicans are frustrated with their House colleagues who continue to sit on the bill that would reopen most of DHS while teasing forthcoming modifications. Any substantial alteration to the bill outside a minor technical correction would kick the bill back to the Senate for reconciliation.
Trump has not weighed in on the Senate's partial DHS bill, but has urged the House to quickly approve the Senate-passed budget blueprint funding immigration enforcement.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., noted that it had been nearly 30 days since he and the speaker put out a joint statement supporting the Senate’s funding bill.
"I guess my question is, what was the alternative? And that's what I said to them at the time, and you tell me, give me a better option, 'cause I'm open to ideas," Thune said Tuesday. "But I don't think anybody had one, and we had a bunch of agencies that weren't being funded."
Congressional Democrats have ripped Johnson for holding up the Senate bill, though Republicans note that Congress would not be in the funding stalemate if Democrats had agreed to a full-year spending bill for the department.
"Johnson can just take up the bill that was passed unanimously in the Senate and we'd be funding all of DHS except for ICE and CBP, and then we could work on that," Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., told Fox News on Tuesday.
"The fact that he has failed to do so is outrageous and it's on him that we are not paying the rest of DHS," she added.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats, who voted unanimously alongside Republicans twice on the funding deal, are scratching their heads about what exactly Johnson is trying to do.
Democrats have also signaled a possible return of the funding standoff that dominated the upper chamber for over a month.
"They’re just stuck so they come up with — we need some technical changes," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. "Hold up national security for technical changes? It’s absurd."