Speaker of the House Mike Johnson tried to play the tough guy after the Senate passed a bill to fund DHS without any funding for ICE and border patrol.
Instead, Johnson and House Republicans passed a 60-day continuing resolution after senators had left the Capitol for Easter recess.
Johnson was adamant that the House majority would not pass any bill that did not contain funding for ICE and border patrol.
Then, with Trump apparently unable to continue paying TSA workers, Johnson completely caved.
Less than a week later, here is how Johnson changed his tune in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Thune:
We appreciate and share the President’s determination to once and for all bring an end to the Democrat DHS shutdown. In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.
We appreciate that Senator Graham and the Senate Budget Committee have already initiated the process of developing a budget resolution that will ensure border security and immigration enforcement will be funded for the balance of the Trump Administration and insulated from future attempts by the Democrats to defund those agencies. We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous.
The problem is that Johnson doesn’t currently have the votes in the House to pass a reconciliation bill.
It remains uncertain how Republicans are going to pass a reconciliation bill, but that didn’t stop Johnson and Thune from blaming Democrats for their cave.