Terry Gerton I feel like we should wipe our brow and go, whew, finally, we have DHS funding after 76 days of a lapse. But it doesn’t feel like a very good resolution. First of all, we’re going to have to do this again in five months. But tell us how the final deal all came together.

Mitchell Miller Well, this was really extraordinary, even by congressional standards. I have to say I have never seen anything quite like this. I mean, if you look back 35 days before the House actually approved this voice vote on the DHS bill to end the partial government shutdown, the Senate had approved the same bill by a voice vote itself. And of course, House Speaker Mike Johnson at the time called it a joke. He was trying to get back with his conservative members of the House and say, look we’re going to we’re going to do this on our own but ultimately as the weeks went on, the Senate and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is a pretty cool customer, was making it increasingly clear that he was getting tired of the fact that the House had said, well we’re just not going to deal with it even though the Senate passed this bill. And the House continued to talk about ICE and the fact that the border protection needed to be separated, which the Senate agreed with. So essentially what you had after 76 days is something that was there all along. And that’s not just criticism from Democrats. Some Republicans were saying that too. Now, the House speaker tried to say, well, we had to separate these two other agencies and there were a lot of other concerns that we had deal with, but it was really, really remarkable to me that this held on for so long without getting resolved. The fact that when you look at it, really, everybody tries to say, who are the winners and losers in this, right? So of course, both parties are going to point fingers at the others saying that they are the losers. But really, I think the losers in all of this are the tens of thousands of federal employees who went without pay during this shutdown, as well as the American people who rely on the services that they provide. These people were just literally hung out to dry for a long time. And the only reason they got paid over the last several weeks, as you know, is because the administration shifted some funds to allow them to get paid. So I think a couple of things that caused it to end were, one, the White House finally got a little bit more involved and President Trump said he really wanted to get this done. And then also the Department of Homeland Security and the new secretary, Markwayne Mullin said, look, we’re going to run out of money in the next few days if this isn’t taken care of. So I think a lot of factors there went into this, but certainly not a real great moment here in Congress.

Terry Gerton You’re right, Mitchell, there are organizations in DHS that are sort of way behind the eight ball in terms of their own operations and many affect national security. So it’s difficult to pick a winner here, but how does this get back to the party’s political arguments that were at the core of this around reforms to Customs and Border Protection and ICE?

Mitchell Miller Well, that’s the really interesting thing. I mean, if you look at it objectively, Democrats essentially started this standoff. They said that because of the fatal shootings in connection with border enforcement, that they had to have some reforms within ICE. And they held out for that for a very long time. And they still are pressing for those reforms with masks, cameras, new guidelines, et cetera. Republicans are saying, okay, you pushed this into a shutdown and then you got nothing for it. Really there have been no major reforms, there’s a couple minor reforms that were included in the original legislation, but the Democrats really didn’t get what they wanted other than they were able to say to their base, we did fight for this. On the Republican side, they can say that one, that they can point the finger at the Democrats for starting it, but then also they have to get back to some kind of normality because right now the House and the Senate are just going back and forth at each other in connection with these bills. So I think what’s going to have to happen is Republicans are clearly going to get on the same page because they’re going to go through reconciliation and they are going to get the money, this $70 billion that they’re hoping to approve for about three years of funding for ICE and for border protection. But there are some other issues rippling there already that we’ll talk about more in the future.

Terry Gerton Mitchell Miller is Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. Mitchell, we alluded to the national security impacts of this standoff that’s been going on. Let’s shift to another aspect of that. The defense secretary was on the Hill last week, talking to both the Senate and the House about the war in Iran. What did you hear there?

Mitchell Miller Well, this was a really feisty series of hearings, the House and the Senate Armed Services committees, both pressing the secretary over and over again about, what is the end game? Where are we going with this? Questions about what has actually happened with the nuclear program in Iran. And Defense Secretary Hegseth really digging in and saying, look, we’ve done everything that the president wanted us to do. Why aren’t you supporting us? He, from his standpoint, he feels that they are getting undercut by not only Democrats but many Republicans who are, at this point now that we’re past the 60 days for the War Powers Act that even some GOP lawmakers are saying, well, wait a second, now Congress needs to really weigh in on this. We have to see what’s going on here. However, there’s been some interesting language twisting involving the administration and Defense Secretary Hegseth. They’re essentially saying, no, this 60 days is not actually up. Because there’s been a ceasefire in effect for several weeks. So they say that stops the calendar. However, lawmakers just really aren’t buying that argument. In fact, late last week, the administration even said that the war has been terminated. So there is only going to be, I think, more and more discussion of all of these attendant issues, especially with the fact that the Strait of Hormuz remains a huge issue and you still have these gas prices and oil prices fluctuating wildly and now going up and up and out again. So this is not something that the administration can just say well there’s a ceasefire and it’s all over right now

Terry Gerton Right, and both sides are talking about bringing up War Powers votes or authorizations for the use of military force. Do you see any of that getting traction now that we are past the 60-day mark?

Mitchell Miller You know, several weeks ago, I didn’t think it was getting much traction, but now, as we have talked about in the past with this 60-day marker, I think it is getting traction. You had Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski late last week talking about the fact that they needed to do something now that we’re in that 60- day period. You had the fact Maine Republican Susan Collins for the first time other than Rand Paul was a Republican who voted with Democrats on the War Powers resolution, even though It failed. And Democrats are going to continue to bring that up when lawmakers return so I think you’re just only going to see more and more discussion about congress getting more involved on this issue

Terry Gerton The other aspect of national security that’s been in conversation on the Hill is the FISA bill. It looks like that may finally be moving.

Mitchell Miller Yes, it’s interesting to see how the FISA bill has worked, especially that Section 702, which you know has been a big controversy, especially in the House. It’s interesting that some of the lawmakers in the House have changed their views. For example, the judiciary chair, Jim Jordan, the last time Section 702 came up, he was a fierce opponent of getting it approved. This time he was on the floor saying it needed to be approved. So then the House got it through to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s credit, given all the different things that are going on with his very slim majority. They got it through for a three-year extension. However, the Senate had said, no, this is dead on arrival because of a few things, including the fact that it would bar the Federal Reserve from establishing a central bank digital currency, which is a whole nother issue. But as you know, sometimes these side issues distract from what’s happening with the overall bill. So, the Senate then approves this 45-day extension to try to give them some more time yet again. But I think what we’re seeing here is a pattern with the House, you know, with Speaker Johnson having so many difficulties trying to get anything through. He just wants to get it done so he passes it off and then says, okay, Senate, you deal with it. And the majority leader on the Senate side, John Thune, as I mentioned, doesn’t like to deal with that in that way. So there is some inherent tension there and that’s something that they are going to have to deal with in the coming months.

Terry Gerton Both chambers are on recess this week? Are they really on recess? Are they trying to defuse some of this tension? Are they really trying to do some work behind the scenes?

Mitchell Miller I think that they are frankly quite relieved to get out. You know, sometimes we talk about the fact that the anger and all the angst comes bubbling up here in Congress, and sometimes Congress just really needs to leave. A lot of people, of course, say they leave too often because it seems like they’re on break every few weeks, but I think behind the scenes, there are markups on the positive side taking place, that are going to be taking place in the coming weeks when they return. I mean, if you look at the schedule, I was looking at the House appropriation schedule, they have a series of markups on all the bills that you would think of with Commerce, Justice, the legislative branch bill. So even though the DHS shutdown has, of course, dominated all of our attention, the good news is behind the scenes, the staffers that do this kind of work, they are trying to set things up so that they can hopefully get back to a little bit more normalcy when they return here, but of course as we talked about, that is also complicated by this little fact that the midterm elections are coming up later this year so I think they’re probably more focused on that right now then what some of the staffers are working on behind the scenes trying to get the legislative wheels moving