Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday backed a two-track plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security, paving the way to fund the Transportation Security Administration in the near-term while punting debate over the agency’s more controversial immigration enforcement functions. 

The announcement amounts to a reversion back to the bill the Senate passed last week that would have funded all of DHS except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection. Democrats have called for changes to immigration enforcement practices before funding those sub-agencies.

Initial DHS funding for most of the department would be followed by a second measure using a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation for ICE And CBP, the Republican leaders said Wednesday in a joint statement. Used only for spending-related measures, that process allows the Senate to approve with a simple minority, as opposed to the 60-votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” Thune and Johnson said in the statement.

Congress is in the first week of a two-week recess and is not due to return until April 13. DHS has been shut down since February, after federal agents killed to U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of an immigration crackdown. Democrats have refused to fund the agency until changes to DHS’s immigration enforcement policies are implemented.

House Republican leaders on Thursday called on Rep. Tony Gonzales to drop his bid for reelection after the Texas Republican admitted to having an affair with a staff member.

The House Ethics Committee on Wednesday announced it was investigating Gonzales’ relationship with the aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide in September. Later on Wednesday, Gonzales went on a conservative radio show and for the first time admitted to the affair, calling it “a lapse in judgment.”

After Tuesday’s primary elections in Texas, Gonzales is heading to a runoff election in May against Brandon Herrera, who is challenging the incumbent from the right.

“Congressman Gonzales has said he will fully cooperate with the investigation. We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and House Republican Caucus Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., said in a joint statement.

“In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election,” the statement continued.

Gonzales office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Thursday.

Katy Padilla Stout, a Democrat running for Gonzales’ seat, won outright in her party’s primary on Tuesday and advanced to the November general election. The district is in southwestern Texas along the border with Mexico. Cook Political Report lists it as “Solid R.”

“I would like to thank Speaker Johnson and House leadership for holding Congressman Tony Gonzales accountable for actions that have tarnished the office,” Herrera said in a post to X on Thursday. “I’m looking forward to representing the district the way the people of West Texas have always deserved.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., on Tuesday slammed Democrats for conditioning Homeland Security Department funding on a requirement that federal immigration agents must obtain judicial warrants to carry out key enforcement activities.

Johnson, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” called that proposal “completely unworkable.” But it’s Democrats’ top demand for funding DHS, which is set to lose funding by the week’s end if Congress can’t pass an appropriations bill.

Johnson said he hopes Congress can pass another stopgap measure to buy time, but suggested Democrats have been unreasonable in negotiations so far.

“They want to defund DHS just like they want to defund police,” Johnson said of his political opponents. DHS includes the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, whose deportation efforts have grown especially controversial after an aggressive surge in Minnesota stirred national unrest.

Democrats “want to make it almost impossible for ICE to do its job,” Johnson, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said.

“Of the 10 demands, probably the most obnoxious is they want to require judicial warrants, which is completely unworkable,” he said.

“Our immigration laws have always been enforced by the executive branch, through administrative law judges. We have, again, literally millions of cases that need to be adjudicated. Our Article Three courts simply can’t handle that, and Democrats know it,” Johnson said.

Democrats have rejected arguments that requiring judge-signed warrants to enter private property — as opposed to administrative warrants issued by federal agency officials — would overburden the system.

The White House sent a counterproposal to Democrats’ demands, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement late Monday called it “incomplete and insufficient.”

Johnson also defended ICE agents wearing masks and obscuring their faces, accusing Democrats of wanting extreme political activists to “dox” agents.

“Democrats want to make sure that ICE can’t use masks. Why is that? Because they want their activists to be able to dox them and put their families at risk.”

He warned that a shutdown would cause real harm, noting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration would be defunded if DHS appropriations lapsed. Other parts of the department are already funded through previous legislation.

“They’re really playing with fire here,” Johnson said.

House Republican leaders are in danger of an embarrassing loss on a procedural vote Tuesday because fellow GOP lawmakers are balking at voting to block challenges to President Donald Trump’s tariffs through the summer. 

A potential GOP rebellion on the vote highlights divisions among House Republicans, a dynamic that could make it even harder for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to advance his and Trump’s agenda through a narrowly divided Congress. Dissatisfied factions within the House GOP have revolted several times this Congress, forcing the release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and supporting a failed Democratic effort to extended Obamacare subsidies.

Johnson cannot afford to lose more than one Republican, assuming all members are present and Democrats are united against the measure being voted on that would set the rules for debating a bill to boost domestic production of critical minerals. At least two Republicans said they plan to vote against Johnson.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a perennial thorn in the side of GOP leadership, has vowed to vote “no.” Others have similarly signaled their opposition, as frustration over Trump’s tariffs and leadership’s maneuvering percolates within the Republican ranks.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., told CNBC on Tuesday he objects to “this idea that everyone needs to stick together to bring a particular bill on the floor” because it makes the House “less of a democratic body.”

The vote was originally slated for early afternoon, but House Republicans rescheduled it for Tuesday night.

Johnson on Tuesday said he expects the measure to pass and said the rationale for the vote this week is “to allow the Supreme Court to rule on the pending case.” The Supreme Court is considering a legal challenge to Trump’s tariffs with a ruling pending following oral arguments last November.

“That process has been playing out. I think it’s logical to allow that to continue. The president’s trade policies have been a great benefit to the country,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday morning.

The House Rules Committee on Monday approved language that would block any House votes disapproving of Trump’s tariffs through July 31. House Democrats had already planned to force a vote on tariffs this week.

“It is no secret that in private many Republican members of Congress have concerns with President Trump’s tariff policies. Now some are even voicing their concerns in public,” the House Rules Committee’s top Democrat Rep. Jim McGovern, of Massachusetts, said at Monday’s hearing.

“They were just about to have the chance to vote this week to end them. So what’s this all about? The White House is scared. They know that the Republican House finally, after months of blocking itself from doing what…

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said he believes he has the votes to end the partial government shutdown by Tuesday, with the House set to take up a Senate-approved spending package this week.

“Let’s say I’m confident that we’ll do it at least by Tuesday,” the Louisiana Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The U.S. government partially shut down on Saturday morning after Congress failed to approve a spending package and send it to President Donald Trump by the Jan. 30 deadline.

Senate Democrats demanded changes to the package that the House originally passed after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Democrats ultimately had the Department of Homeland Security funding stripped from the package and replaced with a two-week stopgap. Now, the amended package has to be reapproved by the House.

The House is set to begin taking up the bill on Monday. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday, the first step in that process.

Johnson said he’s not counting on Democratic support to help fast-track the measure under a “suspension of the rules,” which would require a 2/3 majority in the House.

“We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town, and because of the conversation I had with [Democratic Leader] Hakeem Jeffries, I know that we’ve got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own,” Johnson said.

House Democrats are demanding assurances that changes to DHS’s immigration operations will be finalized before voting on the spending package.

Sources familiar with the matter told MS NOW over the weekend that Jeffries spoke with Johnson and said Democrats will not provide the votes to fast-track the spending package, potentially jeopardizing the end of the shutdown this week.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that he will vote against the package when it comes to the floor.

“I’m not just a no, I’m a firm no, and I’m going to advocate with colleagues that they vote no,” Khanna said. “I just in good conscience cannot vote to give more money to ICE agents as they’re violating our constitutional rights.”

Democratic resistance to the package makes Johnson’s job of pushing the package through significantly harder. He has a razor-thin 218-213 majority in the House, set to dwindle further after Democrat Christian Menefee won a special election in Texas.

“I have a one-vote margin, yes, for the rest of 2026,” Johnson said. “But we’re going to demonstrate once again that this is the party that takes governing seriously.”

In addition to the stopgap for DHS, the package includes bills to fully fund the departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education through the remainder of the fiscal year.

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