Republicans fold on ICE funding; Trump withdraws Casey Means nomination
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Signs that Trump’s cratering approval ratings are beginning to have an actual effect:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed into law legislation funding Department of Homeland Security agencies including the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration, ending a partial shutdown that has gripped DHS operations for nearly 11 weeks.
The logjam was broken when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives unanimously passed a Senate-approved bill that conservatives had refused to consider over the past month.
The House signed off on the legislation as officials warned that current funding was about to run dry, threatening chaos at airports and posing potential vulnerabilities to national security. It represented a victory for Trump [sure, Jan] and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who had pressed House Republicans to pass the bill without modifications.
The legislation, which the Senate passed unanimously twice on March 27 and April 2, will fund DHS agencies that are not involved in Trump’s immigration crackdown through September 30, the end of fiscal year 2026. Those agencies include FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Meanwhile, Casey “I’m not really a doctor exactly, but you may want to subscribe to my anti-vax newsletter” Means isn’t going to be Surgeon General after all:
Trump said Thursday on Truth Social that Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., had stood in the way of Means’ nomination and called him “a very disloyal person.”
“I nominated Casey, a strong MAHA Warrior, at the recommendation of Secretary Kennedy, who understands the MAHA Movement better than anyone, with perhaps the possible exception of ME!,” Trump wrote. “Nevertheless, despite Senator Cassidy’s intransigence and political games, Casey will continue to fight for MAHA on the many important Health issues facing our Country.”
Cassidy chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where a vote on whether to advance Means’ nomination had stalled.
“She didn’t have the votes to pass,” Cassidy told NBC News on Thursday. “The White House has known for a while she didn’t have the votes to pass.”
Kennedy also accused Cassidy on Thursday of holding up the nomination, calling Means “one of the MAHA movement’s most powerful evangelists.”
“By sabotaging this appointment, Bill Cassidy once again did the dirty work for entrenched interests seeking to stall the MAHA movement and protect the very status quo that has made America the sickest nation on earth,” Kennedy wrote on X.
Heh heh.