The Offer Democrats Made

The Department of Homeland Security has been defunded for more than a month. Democrats tried to fund everything but immigration enforcement. Almost no one covered it.

One thing I have learned in politics is the actual story doesn’t matter as much as the one people think they know.

That’s certainly the case with the currently defunded Department of Homeland Security. The story the Trump administration keeps telling is that Democrats shut down the critical department.

That’s not, strictly speaking, true. It’s just the one people believe, and without more accurate reporting, continues to be with limited nuance. This morning the only news that emerged is the Democrats sent a counterproposal that the White House reviewed.

In reality, Democrats put forward bills to fund every part of the Department of Homeland Security except ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Senate Republicans blocked them all. Five separate times in a single day.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted the video of debate on his Facebook page.

Democrats were ready to fund the Transportation Security Administration, which screens you at the airport. They were ready to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds when disaster hits. And the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which guards our digital infrastructure. And the Coast Guard.

All of it, Democrats wanted to fund individually. All of it got voted down.

The core of Democrats’ demand isn’t complicated: They want immigration agents to stop wearing masks, carry body cameras, and use warrants before entering homes. These are the same standards applied to every other federal law enforcement agency in the country.

Republicans in Congress refused to vote on individual funding bills to fund the bulk of the agency, or lead the discussion with the Democrats on compromise, deferring to the White House.

And so now, about 3 weeks into a war with Iran, we are still without a functioning Department of Homeland Security.

Many Americans would never know Democrats made funding offers at all.

Democrats Have Something Bigger Than A Messaging Problem

If you open social media any morning you’ll see Republican influencers, politicians, and commentators—from wildly different backgrounds—all amplifying the exact same story.

The message discipline is honestly impressive. By the time most Americans encounter the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, the Republican frame has already been set: Democrats shut it down.

The counter-story gets almost no oxygen. And Democrats are once again the ones gasping for air. They’re failing to tell their own story, at a moment when the story is actually on their side.

This isn’t just a messaging problem.

There are real issues with freedom of the press that deserve attention. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth effectively gutted the Pentagon press corps last fall, requiring journalists to sign a pledge that all Defense Department information must be approved for public release before being reported, even if unclassified. Nearly every major news organization refused and surrendered their credentials. The reporters who replaced them include Laura Loomer and James O’Keefe. This is not a press corps. These are right-wing influencers with badges.

This weekend, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr suggested he would revoke broadcasters’ licenses over Iran war coverage, warning that those running what the administration believes is fake news must “correct course before their license renewals come up.” President Trump said he was thrilled by the move.

Then there is Tucker Carlson, a previous ally of the President, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration’s Iran war. He claimed this weekend, without providing any evidence, that the CIA is preparing a criminal referral to the Justice Department, accusing him of acting as a foreign agent. The irony is thick: Attorney General Pam Bondi was previously registered as a foreign agent for the government of Qatar. In one of her first acts as AG, she issued a directive limiting criminal enforcement of the very foreign agent law under which Carlson claims he is being targeted.

Press freedom is under assault. The machinery for silencing dissent is already being built. And it is the environment in which Democrats must get their message out.

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene declared on CNN yesterday that Trump has turned MAGA into a “perverted, deranged version” of itself by waging an unprovoked foreign war. Republican cracks are showing. But while all of that gets coverage, the Democrats’ attempt to reopen the Department of Homeland Security is getting next to none.

If any counter-narrative is going to reach the American people, Democrats are going to have to stop behaving like cats, get on the same page, and work towards a new communications strategy.

Could One Small Bill at a Time Be the Answer to a Broken Congress?

The Department of Homeland Security shutdown raises a question worth asking honestly: Does everything have to come in one massive bill?

For nearly two centuries, Congress passed the federal budget as 12 separate appropriations bills, one for each area of government spending. That practice held until 1982. Since then, bills have grown longer and longer, enacted in fewer and fewer packages. What was once careful, line-by-line accountability has become a take-it-or-leave-it exercise that almost no one fully reads.

Democrats have done it. Republicans have done it. The logic is always the same: bundle everything together and you hold your caucus in line.

Democrats jammed through enormous packages under President Biden that frustrated even their own base. The Inflation Reduction Act dropped the expanded Child Tax Credit that had been sending monthly deposits directly into families' bank accounts — which cut child poverty in half — while keeping funding for wind energy.

Republicans passed what they called the One Big Beautiful Bill last year, a sprawling piece of legislation that many members admitted they never fully read. It included provisions cutting the tax deduction for charitable and church donations, a strange choice for a party that has long argued churches and charities, not government, should solve social problems.

What if Republicans who care about child poverty could vote on just the Child Tax Credit? And what if Democrats who care about charitable giving could vote just on that? Could we break this terrible cycle?

Ironically, on the Department of Homeland Security funding, that’s exactly what Democrats are already proposing: smaller bills. Pass funding for the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency now, while continuing to negotiate on immigration enforcement.

It’s transparent, accountable and common sense.

And yet I’m not hearing much about it. I think that’s a problem.