The Briefing, Vol. XIV, Issue 13
March 30, 2026
This week:
- Are government shutdowns a thing of the past?
- Trump’s win-win approach to TSA funding
- Maine’s Graham Platner trouncing sitting Dem governor in another primary poll
Outlook
End of shutdowns? As a Senate deal to fund TSA fell through and both houses of Congress adjourned for a two-week recess, President Trump signed an executive order for Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA’s airport screeners using emergency funds, regardless of what Congress does.
This measure aims to address the immediate crisis of four- to five-hour-long lines forming at some airports such as Houston, Atlanta, and JFK in New York. (Not all airports were so badly affected.) Trump’s initial move to ameliorate the problem was to send ICE officers — who are still being paid separately under last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — into airports to supplement the efforts of those TSA agents who have been showing up but going without paychecks for more than a month now.
This outside-the-box thinking — apparently originally the idea of a caller to the Clay and Buck Radio Program — has not only shortened lines significantly but has also already had unexpected political benefits. For example, it helped humanize immigration officers, who mostly just showed up at airports to perform simple tasks such as checking IDs, handing out bottles of water, and in some cases even offering to stand in line for passengers while they went to use the restroom.
Democrats’ rationale in the current shutdown is somewhat muddled. Their goal is to “reform” immigration enforcement — that is, to force ICE and the Border Patrol to stop enforcing immigration laws. But those agencies are already funded. Their hostages are unrelated agencies that depend on annual appropriations — TSA, yes, but also FEMA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service (formerly part of the Treasury until 2003), and a handful of other alphabet agencies with lower profiles. Several of these are essential to security, and they are unfunded at a time when Trump has thrown down the gauntlet against the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism.
An unconventional order: Now Trump has ordered that TSA workers be paid. This move may seem like a massive departure from the norm — and it is, at least from the practice of the last 46 years. But importantly, it is not at all unusual in our nation’s history.
Take a step back to before 1980, and there were no government shutdowns at all. It was only when Carter-era Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued an opinion about a previously obscure 19th Century Law called the Antideficiency Act. His new and strict interpretation of the law meant the government could no longer expend funds during shutdown periods, including even the wages owed to essential government employees.
Prior to that, things worked differently. As Government Executive’s Tom Shoop put it in 2022: “For nearly 200 years of the country’s history, this never happened. Everyone just assumed that if Congress didn’t get around to finishing appropriations bills, then agencies would just continue operating as normal until lawmakers got the job done.”
You can probably see where this is headed. If shutdowns are a choice by a single attorney general, then there is a very plausible legal argument that they are unnecessary. By simply repudiating a modern (45-year-old) interpretation by an attorney general, Trump could put an end to one of the most ridiculous parts of U.S. governance — the endless lurching by fits and starts between one budget crisis and the next.
Although he hasn’t gone to this extent just yet, it is surely the easiest way to justify his current action.
Short-term and long-term benefit: In the present situation, this order has an added political benefit: If Democrats want to stop it, they must challenge Trump in court to take away paychecks from TSA workers, many of whom make less than $50,000 per year. This won’t be like defunding ICE or the police — entities easier to demonize in the eyes of their base. It will be more like stealing from low-income and unskilled workers.
And of course, what makes this most politically suicidal is the reason why they would be going after these TSA workers’ pay: in order to return to the Biden immigration policy of flooding the U.S. with as many illegal and unvetted aliens as can show up at the border, and give them a right to stay in the country for as many months or years as they can avoid getting caught for murder or some other egregious crime.
Certainly this would not guarantee political losses for Democrats, but it would certainly improve the chances of a Republican Party facing a very difficult midterm environment. The campaign ads nearly write themselves.
The more important long-term effect would be to abolish shutdowns as an instrument of hostage-taking. This is something both parties have advocated for at some point, often on a bipartisan basis, and it is already easily within reach, without need for legislation.
One of Trump’s superpowers in both terms has been to say and do things that other people wanted to say or two but lacked the will for. That includes everything from operationally closing the border to ramping up crime prevention in D.C., to calling China’s treatment of the Uyghurs a genocide, to trying to end birthright citizenship by order (although this will probably fail), to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, to striking Iran’s nuclear capabilities. There are at least a dozen other examples, and in most cases Trump comes off looking good for acting boldly.
Senate 2026
Maine: Despite what the polls keep saying, it seems increasingly likely that Democrats will not be putting their best foot forward in this race.
A new Emerson survey has controversial oyster farmer Graham Platner (D) leading Gov. Janet Mills (D) by a very long way — 55 percent to 28 percent. Both lead incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R) in hypothetical head-to-heads at this point, and Platner by much more. A Mills-Collins race clocks in at 46 to 43 percent, whereas the poll has Platner leading Collins, 48 to 41 percent.
At least, that’s where things stand now. But Platner, for a variety of reasons, will be a much easier target in a general election thanks to his long history of erratic online and offline behavior. For now, ardent leftist zeal for his candidacy in a Democratic primary is likely masking the dangers Democrats will face if they nominate him.
Primary day is Tuesday, June 9.
House 2026
Florida-20: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has earned a reputation for effectiveness by shepherding multiple controversial pieces of legislation into law, despite the slimmest of margins in the U.S. House. But for once, he may soon get a bit of breathing room.
The House Ethics Committee just tried Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) last week and found her guilty of 25 of the charges against her, which involve massive multi-million-dollar COVID fraud for which she is also under indictment. Cherfilus-McCormick is, of course, innocent of the charges until proven guilty in a law court, but that won’t necessarily stop her colleagues from expelling her from the House, much like they expelled former Rep. George Santos (D-N.Y.) in 2023.
More than half a dozen House Democrats already appear likely to cooperate in her removal from the House, and so the clock is ticking on her political career. If she resigns or is removed, it probably guarantees her heavily Democratic seat will remain vacant until the end of the summer, when all legislative activity will be over for the election season.
