Tom Homan may have provided Donald Trump with more than a reset in Minneapolis. His command in the Twin Cities may have disarmed Democrats in Washington DC as well.
After the shooting of Alex Pretti, Democrats in both the House and Senate demanded a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The House had reached a narrow bipartisan agreement to fund DHS and a larger agreement to fund five other departments last week. Senate Democrats demanded changes to DHS funding and Kristi Noem's removal in response to the shooting, or else. It looked like Schumer Shutdown II was well on its way.
Suddenly, however, both Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump appear ready to play Monty Hall with another short-term CR instead, Axios reported:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is directly engaged with the White House on a plan to avert — or shorten — a partial government shutdown, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: The compromise, if agreed to, would pass five of the six appropriations bills and then fund the Department of Homeland Security with a short-term spending stopgap. ...
- Democrats want to use that time to pressure the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to accept their demands to reform ICE, including a requirement to wear body cameras and a ban on masks.
Those demands are a considerable step-down from those made over the weekend and earlier in the week. Democrats wanted Noem removed, and some were demanding the abolition of ICE altogether. Internal polling memos may have warned about the risks of demanding an end to immigration enforcement a year after losing a national election on that issue, but Homan's calm leadership in the last few days – not to mention the sudden walkback from Governor Tim Walz in Minnesota – may have led Democrats to realize that Trump may regain his footing on immigration enforcement a lot sooner than they'd hoped.
The New York Times and CNN (paywalled) also reported on these negotiations. The Times corroborated the new, more modest asks from Senate Democrats as conditions for DHS funding:
Under the emerging plan, according to two officials knowledgeable about it, the Senate would split off legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security from a six-bill package of spending measures needed to keep the military, health programs and other federal agencies funded for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The Senate would pass those bills before a Friday midnight deadline, and Congress also would consider a short-term extension for homeland security operations, which would prevent an interruption of services by the Transportation Security Agency, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
That stopgap bill would provide time for talks between lawmakers and the White House to draft a new homeland security spending bill that would include new restrictions that Democrats have demanded on the tactics of immigration enforcement officers and more accountability for those accused of using excessive force.
So Senate Democrats have gone from "fire Kristi Noem and stop enforcing immigration law" to "wear body cameras and take off masks" in roughly 72 hours. That speaks volumes about the weakness of their position. As for these specific demands, the body-cam requirement actually makes sense. These recordings overwhelmingly tend to debunk progressive narratives about violent encounters, and when they validate those claims, action should be taken. ICE agents have apparently been adopting this as protection against complaints by using their own cell phones to record their activities; the ICE agent who was struck by Renee Good's car and subsequently shot her used his cell phone to record that sequence of events, for instance.
What about the masks? I'd like to hear from law enforcement on that point, but generally speaking, the identities of LEOs are made public in arrest records and criminal complaints. Activists attempted to doxx agents early in the efforts to crack down on four years of open-borders madness, which is what prompted the masking in the first place. Given that the temperatures in Minnesota have been well below freezing during Operation Metro Surge (and well below zero for part of that time), the masks may have been more for immediate protection against frostbite. Using masks for law-enforcement operations as a rule does raise some optics issues, though, and that's a policy that lends itself to reasonable debate.
How serious are Democrats about avoiding a real showdown? A few days ago, the party's leadership thought they could ride this all the way to the midterms, but clearly something has changed their minds. Hakeem Jeffries even told House Democrats to stop going to Minnesota for virtue-signaling shows of "unity":
House Democrats have been privately advised by their leadership not to travel to Minnesota in support of anti-ICE protesters there, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Several Democratic politicians have made the trek in recent days, including Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and New York congressional candidates Brad Lander and Micah Lasher.
- But in an email to Democratic congressional offices dated Monday, a copy of which was obtained by Axios, a senior staffer for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) urged members to remain in their districts for security reasons.
The letter claimed that Minnesota officials don't want more complications for state and local law enforcement that come with CODELs, which is a reasonable explanation. However, it's at least somewhat likely that Jeffries and Schumer don't want to feed into the rage that could backfire when Democrats have to vote for DHS funding after all. And they will eventually have to vote for it, because (a) DHS does a lot more than just run ICE and Border Patrol, (b) those functions are still broadly popular with voters, and (c) Trump has a $75 billion fund for immigration enforcement that will pay for those operations for the next three years even with a shutdown.
What about demanding Noem's head on the figurative spike? Democrats have seemingly dropped that demand. Perhaps they don't want to issue ultimatums that will ultimately fail, or maybe they think an ultimatum will be unnecessary. Real Clear Politics reports that Trump may already be leaning toward a reset at DHS, perhaps with another well-respected former governor:
Trump told reporters Tuesday that Noem would not step down. “I think she is doing a very good job,” the president said before leaving the White House for a speech in Iowa, less than 250 miles from Minneapolis where protests continue unabated. Although once on the ground, he admitted, “I do that all the time, I shake up teams.”
It is the potential for a shakeup that has piqued the interest of at least three serious candidates to replace Noem. Former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin are both believed to be open to joining the administration. Multiple sources tell RealClearPolitics that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is also a contender for the position.
However ...
Nonetheless, floating names for positions even when those jobs are not vacant is part of the regular political churn in Washington. Momentum inside the Beltway is built through whispered conversations before direct appeals are made.
While Chaffetz, Youngkin, and Zeldin all remain in the good graces of the president, a senior Trump official told RCP that any shakeup at DHS would invite controversy, launch an unnecessary confirmation battle in the Senate, and sideline one of the most effective members of the Cabinet. Pointing to the precipitous drop in crossings at the southern border, the official said, “The results stand for themselves.”
One has to wonder whether a change at DHS may be in the offing as a way to get past the FY2026 budget and move onto FY2027 negotiations. Trump wants a new reconciliation bill that focuses on his new health-care reform proposal, and he needs as much runway as possible for that mission. If a change doesn't happen in the next couple of days, though, it likely never will, even if Homan effectively bypasses Noem from now on in handling internal immigration enforcement. Noem has been very effective on the border and in improving other areas of DHS, and while the other candidates may be just as effective, Trump isn't keen on throwing his team under the bus just to please Schumer, Jeffries, or the media.
At least one thing is certain: the sudden calm in Minnesota has taken some of the political wind out of Schumer's sails in this funding showdown. Get ready for a deal involving a CR that lasts a few weeks on DHS funding with agreements on some sensible reforms and procedural compromises that leave ICE and CBP on mission for the next three years. If so, thank Tom Homan for his calm leadership, and Trump for recognizing the need for it.
