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WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., discussed an off-ramp with President Donald Trump on Sunday to reopen the TSA and end long queues and delays at airports.
It would fund the entire Department of Homeland Security except ICE, which Democrats have refused to support without new limitations on immigration enforcement operations, two sources with knowledge of the conversation told NBC News.
White House aides initially relayed the idea to Trump, and after that briefing, Thune spoke with the president, both sources said. Thune discussed the idea with Republicans on Capitol Hill, one of the sources said. The second source said many Republicans see this as a viable path out of the impasse.
ICE would be funded separately by Republicans as part of a “reconciliation” bill that could pass without any Democratic support later this year.
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DHS has been closed for over a month, and while key operations, like TSA and FEMA, are still operating, many employees work without pay. As NBC News reported this weekend, more than 400 TSA agents resigned since the start of the closure. ICE is also closed, but its workers are getting paid thanks to Trump’s big, beautiful bill passed last year.
Republicans believe the exit discussed by Trump and Thune would win support from Democrats, who have proposed funding noncontroversial parts of DHS in the Senate while the two parties continue to negotiate on immigration.
But Trump rejected it – as he made clear in a post on Truth Social Sunday evening.
“I don’t think we should make a deal with the crazy, country-destroying radical left-wing Democrats unless and until they vote with the Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,’” Trump wrote, while instead calling on Republicans to “kill the filibuster and stay in Washington for Easter, if necessary.”
Trump’s first two ideas are unsustainable. Democrats are determined to sink the SAVE America Actwhich does not have enough support to pass. And Republicans have made it clear that they don’t have the votes to override the filibuster. However, they could cancel the vacation if there is still no agreement by the end of this week.
The conversation with Thune and Trump was first reported by Punchbowl News.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office said Democrats will again seek unanimous consent to fund only TSA in the Senate on Monday, for the eighth time.
Republicans have so far rejected these standalone bills.
If Trump were to change his mind and accept the Thune-GOP idea, it would bring benefits to both parties. For Republicans, they could avoid giving in to Democratic demands, such as requiring immigration enforcement agents to remove their masks and requiring court warrants to conduct searches. For Democrats, they could keep their fingerprints on ICE funding, which has become toxic to their base since DHS agents killed protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.
“We will be able to come out of this shutdown by the end of the week,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Sunday. “Here’s what we’re doing. Democrats are willing to open up everything at DHS except ICE. We should accept that. The very next day, we should introduce a budget resolution through reconciliation that funds ICE as we see fit. We don’t need Democratic votes to do that.”
Democrats also plan to rely on Trump’s social media post to claim he is responsible for the shutdown and travel chaos.
Reconciliation bills are arduous, requiring near-unanimous support among Republicans, especially given the House’s slim majority. There is deep skepticism that the party could achieve this, even if it tried. But the need to fund an agency like ICE would incentivize going this route.
As part of the “big, beautiful bill” passed by Republicans last year, ICE received a cash infusion of about $75 billion over the next four years to help carry out Trump’s mass deportation program.
This path carries another possible advantage for the White House: Some Trump allies have proposed reconciliation to approve additional funding for Trump’s war in Iran. It’s unclear whether it can get enough Democratic support.