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Transcript SummaryThe transcript discusses an impending partial U.S. government shutdown at midnight, with 78% of federal funding set to expire.A deal between the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would separate DHS funding from a larger package of six funding bills. The DHS portion would receive a two-week stopgap while ICE reforms are negotiated, allowing the other five bills to pass with bipartisan support.Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is holding up the deal by placing a hold on the legislation. He demands a guaranteed vote on his bill to criminalize sanctuary cities before lifting the hold. He spoke on...

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill on a vote of 71-29 that funds most of the government to dodge a pending government shutdown. If passed by the U.S. House and signed into law, the bill would fund most government agencies. However, it delays a vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security until Feb. 14 because of the objections of Democrat lawakers over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and the deportation of illegal immigrants. The U.S. House is expected to vote on the bill on Monday. 🚨 Senate passes bill to resolve shutdown clash, punting on DHS...

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) announced Friday afternoon that the Senate is poised to vote on a series of amendments and then pass a massive package of appropriations bills to fund the federal departments and agencies. Thune announced votes on seven amendments, including a proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to repeal $75 billion in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and another by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) to bar the Trump White House from rescinding funding through pocket rescissions. The Senate will also consider an amendment sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to remove $5 billion from...

Senate rallies, advances funding package in key test after earlier stumbleSenate Republicans and Democrats locked in an agreement to move forward with a behemoth funding package, smashing through resistance on both sides of the aisle. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., teed up the final vote for the package Friday after hours of quelling resistance among Senate Republicans. Lawmakers will plow through several amendments before voting on the package, which is expected to pass and head to the House. That also means that, despite their best efforts, a government shutdown is all but guaranteed given that the deadline to fund...

Lawmakers are seeking answers about the director of national intelligence’s presence at a search of the Fulton County elections office. Democratic senators called Thursday for a briefing on why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined an FBI search of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office related to the 2020 presidential election.“What the heck is she doing on the FBI serving a domestic warrant? If this doesn’t concern the heck out of every American, it sure as hell should,” said Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is requesting the briefing from Gabbard’s office. “This...

The Senate’s race to avert a shutdown hit the skids late Thursday night as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) placed a hold on the government funding package, forcing leaders to punt the vote. Senators had been hoping to vote on the so-called minibus after leaders struck a deal earlier in the day and President Trump endorsed it. Under the agreement, the Senate was set to vote on a package of five full-year funding bills and a stopgap measure funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for two weeks. But as lawmakers awaited word on the vote late Thursday, a fired-up Graham...

McConnell, facing mobility challenges from childhood polio and recent falls, appeared hours before a Senate cloture vote on spending bills for agencies like Defense and Homeland Security. The vote failed 45-55 amid Democratic opposition to DHS funding and immigration disputes. The images drew online criticism from conservatives calling it embarrassing and pushing for age or term limits, while a few praised his dedication; his office has not commented on his health.

Another government shutdown looks increasingly likely by the end of the week. Democrats are demanding that major changes to Department of Homeland Security enforcement policy be written directly into the budget agreement. Those changes would largely shut down President Trump’s deportation efforts.Trump has already made some changes. For example, DHS removed Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino – who had become a political lightning rod – from his assignment in Minneapolis. Democrats, however, are pressing for far more sweeping changes. They want to require judicial warrants for immigration arrests, force ICE agents to be easily identifiable, and grant states the authority...

Democrats voted to block legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies Thursday as they continued to negotiate with Republicans and the White House on new restrictions for President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement. Thursday’s 45-55 test vote came as Democrats have threatened a partial government shutdown when money runs out on Friday. But Trump said just ahead of the vote that “we don’t want a shutdown” and the two sides were discussing a possible agreement to separate homeland security funding from the rest of the legislation and fund it for a short time.

The Senate struck a deal to fund a large portion of the government on Thursday evening, just a day before a shutdown deadline.The agreement will split the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) off from a “minibus” package of five other major funding bills. The Senate will instead move a stopgap bill known as a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund DHS at current levels until Feb. 13.The two sides had haggled over the length of the CR, with Democrats insisting on the two-week version that won out.

Alex Vindman, who became a key player along with his twin brother in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, announced on Tuesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Florida. Vindman, an Army veteran, was serving on the National Security Council in 2019 when the Republican president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden, then a Democratic candidate. He and his brother, Eugene, a lawyer on the National Security Council, reported their concerns and sparked investigations. Eugene Vindman now serves as a congressman from Virginia. If Alex Vindman clinches the Democratic nomination, he’ll challenge...

A Republican senator will visit Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, later this week to have talks on the Arctic island's point of view, according to a Greenlandic lawmaker on Tuesday. Lisa Murkowski will visit Greenland on Friday, Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, told Danish TV2. "The plan is that she will go to Nuuk to visit a number of influential people over the weekend to gain an understanding of the Greenlandic points of view," she noted. The meeting came ahead of the upcoming negotiations in the working group that will negotiate a future agreement between Greenland,...

U.S. Senator John Fetterman asked President Donald Trump to fire Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a social media post Tuesday, . “President Donald J. Trump: I’m making a direct appeal to immediately fire Secretary Kristi Noem,“ Fetterman wrote on Facebook. “Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’ core mission and trashing your legacy to secure our border. DO NOT make the same mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary.” Fetterman made a similar post on X, just a day after condemning the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by U.S. Border...

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has sent letters to the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to testify before his committee amid growing public controversy over immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other communities. Paul informed the leaders of President Trump’s immigration agencies in a tersely worded letter that “Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight” of what he called the “exceptional amount of funding” the Republican Congress has allocated to secure the borders and enforce immigration laws. “Congress has an obligation to conduct...

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for an investigation Friday into a deal that saw TikTok’s American business spun off into a separate entity in order to allow the app to continue operating in the U.S. The deal was finalized Thursday, with TikTok announcing it had officially established the new U.S. venture. “After over a year of Donald Trump illegally extending the TikTok deadline, this TikTok deal raises many more questions than answers,” Markey said in a statement. “Despite my repeated requests for information, the White House has provided virtually no details about this agreement, including whether TikTok’s algorithm is truly...

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) called on Senate Republicans on Sunday to move a government funding package without funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the week. Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House GOP leaders to drop the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from the six-bill funding package that is due to come to the Senate floor this week. “Senate Democrats will not allow the current DHS funding bill to move forward,” Schumer said in...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that she will not vote for Department of Homeland Security funding after the latest fatal shooting of an American by a federal agent in Minneapolis. "When they're killing two constituents in my state, and they're taking two-year-olds out of the arms of their mom, and they are taking an elder Hmong man out of his house and putting him out there in his underwear, and then figuring out they have the wrong man," Klobuchar told "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker. "No, I am...

WASHINGTON — A sweeping government funding package is facing new hurdles in the Senate after another person was shot and killed by a federal officer on Saturday in Minnesota, raising the specter of a potential shutdown next Friday at midnight.The legislation needs 60 votes to secure passage in the chamber, where Republicans control 53 seats. And a number of key Democrats who have voted for recent appropriations measures said they’ll vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security unless restrictions are put on how immigration officers carry out enforcement operations.The package, which has passed the House, is slated to come...

Police arrested Congressional Black Caucus chair Joyce Beatty on Thursday afternoon after she led pro-voting rights protesters into a Senate office building. Officers moved in as Beatty, 71, and a handful of other activists, including Women's March co-founders Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, chanted, 'Fight for justice,' and, 'End the filibuster.' Capitol Police later said they had arrested nine people for 'demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds.'

Talarico: "Paul says that in Christ there is neither male nor female which is pretty woke for the first century."