Today\u2019s notice: Mullin gets a new job, and possibly a new funding stream for that job. Marco Rubio, character witness. The latest from an increasingly nasty Democratic Senate primary in Maine. And: Everybody wants a housing bill but nobody wants the housing bill.<\/p>\n
THE LATEST<\/p>\n
Is a DHS funding deal now actually possible? \u201cYou\u2019ll have to talk to the senators about that,\u201d freshly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters last night, just minutes after his time as a senator ended.<\/p>\n
Mullin was confirmed by the chamber 54-45<\/a>, with \u201cyes\u201d votes from two Democrats (John Fetterman and Martin Heinrich) and every Republican except for Rand Paul. The promise from the White House is that Mullin will bring an end to the Kristi Noem era of DHS and begin a new, less controversial one.<\/p>\n But the department funding fight, which began as a way for Democrats to slow Noem\u2019s roll when it came to immigration enforcement efforts, is now the first headache of Mullin\u2019s term. NOTUS\u2019 Em Luetkemeyer and Al Weaver report<\/a> that a two-hour meeting at the White House with Donald Trump, Mullin, border czar Tom Homan and some key Senate Republicans may have produced real results.<\/p>\n One of the meeting attendees, Sen. Steve Daines, told NOTUS that they are close to a deal: Democrats agree to support a funding bill for all of DHS except ICE, and then Republicans get to work on securing some of that ICE funding, as well as elements of the SAVE America Act, in a new reconciliation bill that wouldn\u2019t need Democratic votes.<\/p>\n \u201cI am going to be working through the night,\u201d Sen. Katie Britt said last night of her plan to get this deal moving, fast.<\/p>\n Open tabs: New top prosecutor named in New Jersey, ending impasse over U.S attorney\u2019s office<\/a> (WaPo); The Supreme Court Appears Poised to Limit Mail-In Voting Deadlines<\/a> (NOTUS); Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump\u2019s market-turning post<\/a> (CNBC); The Trump-inspired realignment of the conservative think tank world<\/a> (Politico)<\/p>\n From Florida<\/p>\n Under oath: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to raise his right hand in a Miami courthouse today, as he takes a break from America\u2019s military excursions to testify on behalf of an old friend, NOTUS\u2019 Jose Pagliery reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n That friend is a former Republican congressman, David Rivera, who stands accused of enriching himself by illegally lobbying for Venezuela. The case has taken on a new dimension in recent months because it relies on a foreign influence law that Trump himself has panned after it took down several of his closest advisers, Jose writes.<\/p>\n It has all the trappings of a potential international spectacle. Rivera built his career espousing the rigid anti-left stance of Miami\u2019s Cuban American community, and the case has plenty of intrigue: Latin American petro politics, shell companies, shadowy meetings. Included in the saga is Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned gas and oil company that recently received a reprieve on sanctions from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n From the campaign trail<\/p>\n Note: The ad features sound effects covering the slurs. That\u2019s a line from a press release announcing the latest negative ad aimed at Graham Platner in Maine\u2019s Democratic Senate primary after Gov. Janet Mills shifted her campaign into attack mode<\/a> last week. NOTUS\u2019 Alex Roarty got a look<\/a> at the latest spot, which again focuses on Platner\u2019s rich history of regrettable posting.<\/p>\n From the Pentagon<\/p>\n The Defense Department laid out a new set of restrictions for its press corps: a forthcoming media annex<\/a> \u201coutside the Pentagon, but still on Pentagon grounds,\u201d closure of the traditional areas reporters have been able to access and a requirement that reporters be escorted at all times in the building. The new rules come on the heels of a courtroom loss to The New York Times.<\/p>\n From your favorite podcast app<\/p>\n In this week\u2019s On NOTUS<\/a>, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma sits down with host Reese Gorman to talk about the status of the Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations, Markwayne Mullin\u2019s new job at DHS and why he won\u2019t vote to change the filibuster, even to pass bills he supports like the SAVE America Act.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got some folks that somehow believe that if you yell loud enough, all the Democrats on the left will cower and they\u2019ll just walk away, and that\u2019s not how real life works in the Senate,\u201d Lankford told Reese<\/a>.<\/p>\n THE BIG ONE<\/p>\n The housing bill blame game: Both chambers of Congress have passed their own versions of a bipartisan housing bill, and Trump has said he\u2019s open to signing something. But NOTUS\u2019 Oriana Gonz\u00e1lez and Raymond Fern\u00e1ndez report<\/a> on the measure\u2019s murky legislative future, which has led to plenty of finger-pointing.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Warren is the new bad guy. In pushing to get the Senate version passed, she has discouraged housing advocacy groups and stakeholders from publicly calling for a conference or negotiations between the two chambers, Oriana and Raymond report. Democratic House members say their calls for negotiations have been rebuffed by Warren\u2019s team, too.<\/p>\n \u201cHouse Republicans should put the [Senate] bill on the floor,\u201d Warren said in a statement. \u201cDoing anything less will fail American families struggling with sky-high housing costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Warren, Tim Scott was the problem. The Republican senator was accused of not returning calls from the Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, who wants changes to the upper chamber\u2019s legislation, too.<\/p>\n The White House calls the Senate bill \u201ca priority for the president.\u201d But the bottom line is that House lawmakers still don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n NEW ON NOTUS<\/p>\n Blocked (temporarily): A federal judge has stopped DHS from detaining refugees who haven\u2019t obtained green cards, NOTUS\u2019 Jackie Llanos reports.<\/a> Federal lawyers failed to defend the Trump administration\u2019s own policy, which instructed agents to arrest refugees who didn\u2019t obtain a green card within a year of arriving in the country. The order prevents DHS from enforcing its policy for the duration of the litigation.<\/p>\n More: Elizabeth Warren Has Questions About MrBeast\u2019s New Youth Cryptocurrency App<\/a>, by Amelia Benavides-Col\u00f3n<\/p>\n NOT US<\/p>\n Thank you for reading! If you liked this edition of the NOTUS newsletter, please forward it to a friend. If this newsletter was shared with you, please subscribe<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s free! Have a tip? Email us at tips@notus.org<\/a>. And as always, we\u2019d love to hear your thoughts at newsletters@notus.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s notice: Mullin gets a new job, and possibly a new funding stream for that job. 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