Senate Advances $174B Funding Deal Amid DHS Dispute
The U.S. Senate has made a big step forward by advancing a $174 billion funding package, but the clock is ticking as the government will shut down at the end of the month without a bill being passed.
With a vote of 81 to 14 from both parties on Monday night, senators cleared the first step in the process for a three-bill package known as a “minibus.” The House already voted to approve this package last week. It will receive a final vote in the Senate later this week before being sent to President Donald Trump.
Even though things are improving, lawmakers have until January 30 to secure funding for the remainder of the government’s operations. Some think that a short-term continuing resolution will be needed to buy time.
The issue has caused a lot of debate, especially since funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still up in the air and politically charged.
The Senate’s bipartisan support shows that everyone wants to avoid another shutdown, especially since it happened just a few months after the longest one in history. However, there are still some difficult issues to deal with. Let’s look at why this fight is far from over.
Fox News says that getting 81 senators to agree on anything these days is no small feat. However, the $174 billion deal shows that both sides are at least trying to keep the lights on.
This feels like a half-hearted sprint to the halfway point, though, since only three funding bills have been passed so far and a dozen are needed to fully avoid a shutdown.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who is on the Senate Appropriations Committee, didn’t hold back when he talked about what was coming. He said, “Of course, there’s going to be a short-term CR,” which means that a temporary funding patch is almost certain to happen. Why hurry to find a good answer when you can just put it off?
At the same time, another $77 billion package that includes National Security and Financial Services could soon go through the House.
Even if it passes, it won’t be enough to avoid a shutdown, and it doesn’t include the controversial DHS appropriations bill. That’s where the real fireworks start.
The DHS funding bill has always been a source of disagreement, but the tragic shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE officer in Minnesota last week has made things even worse.
This event has added fuel to an already heated argument about how agencies like ICE and Customs and Border Protection work. Now, lawmakers from both sides are dealing with the public’s worry about how these agencies are acting.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a key member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, took advantage of the situation to call for changes.
“I understand we have to get Republican votes,” he said. “So I’m not proposing we fix this overnight, but I think it should be clear to Republicans that if they want Democratic votes for a DHS appropriations bill, they’re going to have to work with us on our concerns.”
Democrats are standing firm and asking for concessions like better training for officers, but they are framing it as a reasonable compromise.
Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) says it’s “always one of the most difficult” bills to pass. Why should taxpayers believe that this won’t just turn into another partisan fight?
The fact that both parties voted for the $174 billion package shows that neither side wants to be blamed for a shutdown.
As the January 30 deadline approaches and DHS funding is still a mess, a short-term fix seems like a way to avoid the problem.
Obama Accuses JD Vance Of Promoting ‘Blood And Soil’ Politics
Former President Barack Obama rarely mentions Vice President JD Vance by name, but that changed this week with one of his sharpest public attacks since Vance took office.
The comments immediately fueled speculation that Democrats are beginning to focus more attention on the vice president as Republicans look ahead to the post-Trump era.
Speaking Thursday during a conversation with author Malcolm Gladwell, Obama accused Vance of promoting what he described as a “blood and soil” vision of America, despite being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Obama made the remarks while discussing the Reconstruction era and arguing that many of the same debates over citizenship, voting rights and national identity continue today.
“We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that ‘We the people’ means a certain kind of people,” Obama said.
“When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of ‘We the people,’ that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself.”
The phrase “blood and soil” is historically associated with Nazi Germany and white nationalist ideology.
Obama went on to argue that debates over who belongs in America remain central to the nation’s politics.
“That echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions,” he said.
Gladwell followed by accusing Vance of hypocrisy, arguing that the vice president was making what he called a nativist argument despite his own family’s immigrant background.
Obama agreed.
“That is progress,” Obama said.
“Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others.”
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
Obama did not identify the specific speech he was criticizing, but Vance’s most recent nationally televised remarks came during Independence Day celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
In that speech, Vance encouraged Americans to reject what he called a “two-dimensional view” of the country focused only on its historical failures.
“So what I’d ask you to do, my fellow Americans, on our 250th birthday, is to reject the two-dimensional view of your fellow citizens and reject the two-dimensional view of your country,” Vance said.
“Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins, but not its grace and its greatness.”
He also emphasized that America’s accomplishments were achieved by “a common people working towards a common future.”
Obama has generally avoided making Vance a regular target since the vice president took office.
One notable exception came during the 2024 presidential campaign when then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Without naming Vance directly, Obama contrasted Harris’ choice with the Republican ticket.
“When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they’ll be,” Obama said at the time, Fox News reported.
Political observers have increasingly discussed Vance as a potential frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, though he has not announced any plans to run.
Against that backdrop, Obama’s unusually direct criticism is likely to fuel speculation that some Democrats are beginning to sharpen their message against a politician they view as a likely future standard-bearer for the Republican Party. While no Democratic leaders have publicly described their strategy in those terms, prominent figures often begin drawing contrasts with potential future rivals well before a presidential campaign officially begins.
Whether that proves to be the case remains to be seen, but Obama’s remarks marked one of his most pointed critiques of Vance to date and ensured the vice president once again found himself at the center of the national political conversation.
