Johnson comes out swinging against DHS funding compromise as bipartisan deal falters

WASHINGTON (CN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed the door Wednesday on a potential deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security without budget approvals for certain immigration enforcement activities, accusing Democrats of trying to score political points against President Donald Trump.

The top House Republican’s comments come as a Senate GOP-backed proposal to reopen the agency faltered amid cratering support from lawmakers and even the president, who expressed skepticism about the potential compromise.

“This is common sense versus crazy,” Johnson told reporters during a news conference Wednesday morning. “It’s crazy. I don’t know another word to describe it. They’re putting everybody in jeopardy — all this inconvenience and all this hardship for their own political skins.”

Members of Congress this week inched toward a path forward on DHS funding as the agency’s appropriations shutdown lurched into its fifth week. The budget lapse has been hardest felt by the Transportation Security Administration, where staffing shortages have led to chaotic scenes at airports across the country. As many as 450 TSA agents have left the agency so far.

Democrats for weeks have advocated for a DHS funding bill that peels off spending for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest and deportation operations, a gambit aimed at buying time to negotiate a swath of reforms to the agency’s practices.

This week, Senate Republican leadership floated a similar plan — but they were met with a lukewarm reception from their own colleagues, Democrats and Trump himself.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday he was “pretty much not happy” with the proposal, adding he thought congressional negotiators were getting “fairly close” but he didn’t want to make any commitment until he’d seen a deal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said Democrats plan to send the White House a counteroffer to the Republican-led compromise.

Johnson said Wednesday morning there were discussions in the House about the proposal to split ICE funding from a broader DHS funding bill but argued Congress has always voted to fund the agency in its entirety.

“There’s obvious reason for that, it’s very important,” said the House speaker. “I don’t think we need to be breaking it apart.”

Asked whether the president should be more directly involved in negotiations, Johnson contended Trump had been involved, and that his comments at the White House Tuesday reflected he was “a little skeptical or cynical” about a deal coming together.

“He wants Congress to do its dang job,” said the top House Republican. “We have done it — the Republicans have, but the Democrats are refusing to go along with it.”

And Johnson slammed Democrats for “playing games” with the federal workforce. “Why are they doing this?” he said. “Because they’re afraid of their radical base. Boom. That’s it.”

In a Tuesday post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump appeared to step even further away from compromise. “The Democrats don’t want to make any deal unless Amnesty and Citizenship is given to millions of Criminals who have entered our Country illegally, many of whom have been convicted of serious crimes,” the president wrote.

The Homeland Security Department has been shut down since last month, after Democrats refused to fund the agency unless Republicans agreed to a laundry list of reforms aimed at reining in what many lawmakers have framed as an out-of-control immigration enforcement apparatus.

Federal agents from ICE and Border Patrol in January shot and killed two U.S. citizens during the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign in Minneapolis. DHS and the White House initially framed both victims as “domestic terrorists” looking to harm law enforcement but have long since abandoned that characterization.

Democrats, meanwhile, have demanded that any legislation funding DHS include language barring federal agents from wearing masks in public and preventing them from conducting immigration enforcement in “sensitive” areas such as schools and hospitals. They’ve also said the agency should abandon guidance allowing federal agents to forcibly enter homes without a signed judicial warrant.

Republicans could move to fund ICE through a process known as budget reconciliation, which would allow them to pass spending legislation without Democratic support.

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