1. SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN: The path forward for a DHS funding deal — let alone a Republican reconciliation bill that might absorb some of the politically thorniest components — remains pretty uncertain on the Hill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he thinks the framework Senate Republicans and the White House reached earlier this week is “still the best landing spot,” POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports. It’s an “open question” whether the chamber will take its upcoming scheduled recess, Thune added. But it’s far from clear whether Democrats, conservatives and even Trump will support the plan. Dems sent their latest counter-offer today, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, per Semafor’s Burgess Everett — and Thune slammed it, saying “they’re going in circles.” And Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) met with a few moderate House Dems. Trump again blamed Democrats and floated sending the troops into airports. Reconcilable differences: Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he’s charging forward on a second reconciliation bill, potentially encompassing ICE funding, defense funding and parts of the SAVE America Act, per Jordain. He didn’t lay out any timeline. Feeling the pain: Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee this morning, acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said the shutdown has produced the longest airport wait times on record — and warned that it will damage training for security officers at the World Cup this summer. “A perfect storm,” she said. Democrats and Republicans on the panel sparred over whom to blame. In Houston, long TSA lines snagged former AG Bill Barr, per CBS’ Nicole Sganga. And among tens of thousands of officers going without pay, savings are running out, medical procedures are getting delayed and people are going to food banks, AP’s Philip Marcelo and colleagues report. Bigger than the shutdown: “A security warning, buried: How a classified TSA report stalled inside DHS,” by CBS’ Sganga: “An internal watchdog report in the Department of Homeland Security identified serious vulnerabilities in TSA’s screenings at airports nationwide — and the agency has yet to respond five months later, according to internal communications provided to House Homeland Security Committee staff and reviewed by CBS News.” Immigration files: Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s historic immigration crackdown — which spurred Democrats to force the shutdown — is still being felt, even in places where it’s ebbed. More than a month after Operation Metro Surge ended, business is still depressed in the Twin Cities, WSJ’s Joe Barrett reports from Minneapolis. And the administration’s mass detention policy scored another big win in court today as a federal appellate panel (which notably covers Minnesota) gave Trump the green light to lock up even noncriminals and longtime unauthorized U.S. residents, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. It’s the policy’s second appellate victory after hundreds of federal judges ruled against it. Deportation digest: And NYT’s Hamed Aleaziz and Pranav Baskar reveal an extraordinary U.S. pressure campaign to get Cameroon to accept hundreds of deportees from other countries: The State Department refused to sign off on $30 million for a local U.N. refugee office until Cameroon agreed to a deal (the deportees’ lawyer said this was tantamount to “selling people”). The U.S. also declined to condemn the authoritarian Cameroonian leader’s fatal crackdown on protests in the wake of his disputed reelection. The State Department didn’t comment. 2. THE TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS: A newly publicized memo from special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into Trump’s handling of classified materials says Trump kept and shared highly sensitive documents after his first term, including a classified map he allegedly showed future chief of staff Susie Wiles in 2022, WaPo’s Jeremy Roebuck and Maegan Vazquez report. The 2023 memo, which was recently shared with congressional Democrats, also alleges that some of the top-secret documents Trump kept were relevant to his business interests, POLITICO’s Hailey Fuchs writes. As Republicans scrutinize Smith’s investigations, this memo “could only heighten the pressure on the administration to make the full report public.” The politics: House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said in a letter to AG Pam Bondi that the potentially damaging info about Trump was accidentally revealed as DOJ sought to undercut Smith’s probes, HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney reports. The Justice Department shot back that Raskin’s claims were “baseless” and that Smith’s documents include “salacious and untrue claims” about Trump. 3. A FLEETING FORCE: The task force Bondi created to investigate terrorism and antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7 saw resources dwindle after many prosecutors and agents were fired or removed in the past year, WaPo’s Perry Stein reports. “These struggles come as the United States faces a potential uptick in antisemitic threats tied to terrorist organizations as a result of the war in Iran. The task force’s fate highlights how national security experts in the Justice Department and FBI have been thinned out under President Donald Trump, often being reassigned or dismissed as the administration pursues its political objectives.” 4. BACK ON THE RISE: “Navarro: Trump will still raise tariffs to 15 percent,” by POLITICO’s Daniel Desrochers and colleagues: “White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Wednesday that President Trump still intends to raise his current set of global tariffs to 15 percent, more than a month after the president pledged it would happen.” The administration has yet to release any formal order raising the tariffs, but “increasing the duties another 5 percent could jeopardize existing trade agreements Trump reached with the United Kingdom and European Union.” 5. BIPARTISAN BREAKTHROUGH: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) announced they reached a deal to cap insulin costs at $35, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. The goal is for the legislation to pass before Shaheen’s retirement, but they’ll need to get Thune and Trump on board. 6. VALLEY TALK: Trump named 13 tech executives to join the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle executive chair Larry Ellison, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon reports. “Among other issues, the body is expected to wield influence over the administration’s artificial intelligence policies. The panel will be co-chaired by White House AI czar David Sacks and Office of Science and Technology Policy head Michael Kratsios.” 7. KNOWING TONY LYONS: “Meet the man building a MAHA empire behind RFK Jr.,” by the Boston Globe’s Tal Kopan: “Under the MAHA banner, [Tony] Lyons hosts administration officials as he plays emcee on weekly activist organizing calls, holds glitzy cocktail parties at an exclusive D.C. club, and convenes events around the country.”
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