House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Americans should pay attention to how their representatives vote when a bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security comes up for a vote on Thursday.
"You better watch that board. And everybody in America better watch that board. Anybody who votes to block funding for the homeland, it is shameful," Johnson said.
"I don't know how to describe it. It speaks to a long record of Democrats' deliberate efforts to undermine America's safety and the essential operations of DHS," he added.
Johnson said the conflict in Iran "makes it all more urgent and crucial to have a fully funded, fully staffed DHS across all its departments."
"We have Democrats running around here playing political games in Congress. It's infuriating," Johnson said.
"They shut down the very agency that is responsible for securing the homeland. The Democrats have shut down the agency responsible for keeping Americans safe. Unbelievable," he said.
With DHS unfunded, employees are working without pay and the department is managing essential operations under shutdown conditions.
Democrats have tied their demands to an effort to establish new guardrails on immigration enforcement, including steps they say would bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in line with standard law enforcement practices, and they have argued that changes are needed to prevent violence during federal actions.
Republicans have rejected those conditions as unrelated to appropriations and have accused Democrats of exploiting the shutdown to weaken immigration enforcement amid Trump's crackdown.
"Donald Trump launches an unauthorized war in the Middle East. He characterizes it as endless," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. "He decides that he wants to spend billions of dollars to bomb Iran, rather than spend taxpayer dollars to lower the grocery bills that are crushing the American people."
"And then wants to use his unauthorized war as an excuse to continue spending taxpayer dollars to brutalize or kill American citizens by continuing to unleash ICE without restrictions on the American people," Jeffries added. "The whole thing is insane.
"Make it make sense, because it does not."
A whip notice obtained by Politico told House Democrats to vote against the funding bill. According to the notice, the legislation contains "no new language to end the chaos caused by DHS in communities across the country."
While the bill is expected to pass the House, it has virtually no chance of overcoming a filibuster by Senate Democrats.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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