Happy Friday, everybody.
In major news today, the 76-day DHS shutdown is over, and the Senate bill that ended it is the same one Mike Johnson called “a joke” eight weeks ago. Trump continues to escalate his fight with NATO, this time over Italy and Spain. The legal clock on the Iran war ran out today, but Congress went home. Alabama is the next state to use the Supreme Court ruling earlier this week to try to erase a Black-majority district. And millions of Americans are skipping work to make a point about who this economy is actually serving.
Ok, let’s get to it.
1. Republicans Cave and End The Longest Shutdown in U.S. History
House Republicans abruptly ended the 76-day Department of Homeland Security shutdown Thursday by passing a Senate bill Speaker Mike Johnson once called “a joke” and refused for weeks to bring to the floor.
The shutdown began February 14 in a standoff over immigration funding after federal agents killed two American citizens during protests in Minneapolis. The Senate unanimously advanced the bipartisan DHS funding legislation in March — and Johnson refused to consider it. For 76 days he stalled, insisting any deal had to include funding for ICE and Border Patrol.
In the end, House GOP leaders conceded in a major retreat as Johnson faced a growing revolt from vulnerable Republicans. The bill that finally passed contains zero dollars for ICE — exactly what Democrats demanded from day one.
This was a very bad day for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who held a department hostage for two and a half months, missed paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, caused chaos at airports across the country, and got less than what was on the table in March.
Republican Chip Roy let his frustration with the GOP’s internal chaos show in a floor tirade against his colleagues:
The next fight? Trump has issued a public directive to GOP leaders to figure out full DHS funding, including ICE and CBP, by June 1. The bill will be done through the party-line reconciliation process, no Democratic votes needed. That’s the real game now: an additional $70 billion to fund Trump’s mass-deportation operation through the end of his term, with no negotiation, no oversight, and a self-imposed Memorial-Day deadline.
Also watch Speaker Mike Johnson, who no longer has a functional majority in the House. A funding package for the Iran war that could cost as much as $100 billion is coming next, and there’s no reason to think the same conference that just spent 76 days at war with itself will suddenly figure out how to work together.
Retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, observing from the Senate side, was blunt: “I think my colleagues over there need to start playing team ball. Their behavior is starting to be noticed by people. We can’t blame Democrats for the dysfunction that is going on over there right now.”
2. Trump Threatens to Pull Troops From Italy and Spain Too. Unfortunately, the Pentagon Is Finding Out the Same Way You Are
President Trump told reporters Thursday he will “probably” reduce U.S. troop levels in Italy and Spain over both countries’ refusal to support the Iran war — one day after announcing a similar review for Germany.
The Italy-Spain announcement came as a follow-up to a Wednesday night Truth Social post in which Trump said the U.S. is “studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time.”
Per Politico, three Defense Department officials said the Pentagon learned of the Germany announcement from Trump’s Truth Social post. The decision came just a month after a lengthy Pentagon review of foreign-posted troops concluded that no major removal was necessary in Europe.
Asked Thursday whether Italy and Spain were also on the table, Trump did not mince words. See video below.
This is the largest threatened restructuring of America’s NATO posture in decades, and it’s being driven by personal grievance, not strategy. The U.S. has 36,436 active-duty troops in Germany, 12,662 in Italy, and 3,814 in Spain. The Pentagon — the institution that would actually execute these withdrawals — was not consulted before the announcements.
Trump’s last attempt to remove forces from Germany, in 2020, was blocked by legislative opposition. And current U.S. law sets a minimum of 76,000 troops permanently stationed or deployed in Europe. The real question now is whether Republican senators who pushed back on this in Trump’s first term show up the same way.
3. The Iran War Is Officially Illegal As of Today, But Republicans Claim the Clock Is “Paused”
The 60-day War Powers Resolution deadline for Trump to obtain congressional authorization for the Iran war hit today — and Congress left town without taking any action to enforce it.
Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize the use of force within 60 days — a deadline that falls on Friday — or within 90 days if the president asks for an extension. The administration’s position? The ceasefire pauses the clock.
Here’s Hegseth:
A senior administration official went further, saying “the hostilities that began on Saturday, Feb. 28 have terminated” — even though Iran is still blockading the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. Navy is still blockading Iranian ports.
The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. The 1973 law was designed precisely to stop a president from waging an unauthorized war indefinitely — exactly what’s happening right now. And the response from Republican leadership has been to leave for a week’s recess. The Senate rejected a Democratic war powers resolution for the sixth time on Thursday.
The next move is Lisa Murkowski’s. The Alaska Republican said she will introduce an authorization for use of military force when the Senate returns the week of May 11 if the administration does not present what she called a “credible plan.” Republican Sens. John Curtis of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Josh Hawley of Missouri have also said they want a vote eventually — and Curtis has gone further, saying he would not support continued funding for the war until Congress votes to authorize it. Funding is the real lever. Watch the appropriations fight that’s coming.
North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer, asked about the deadline, questioned whether the War Powers Resolution itself “is even constitutional,” because “our founders created a really strong executive, like it or not like it.” The founders also created Article I, which gives Congress the sole power to declare war. It’s right there. You can read it.
4. Republicans Try to Erase A Black-Majority District in Alabama
Immediately following the Louisiana GOP’s actions yesterday, Alabama Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall and Secretary of State Wes Allen are targeting one of two Black-Majority districts in their state.
The pair filed emergency motions Thursday afternoon asking the U.S. Supreme Court to lift injunctions that have forced Alabama to use a court-ordered congressional map containing a second majority-Black district. Marshall is invoking Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais as the basis. Marshall says that under the new rules, Alabama’s old injunctions around racial gerrymandering can’t survive it.
The history matters here. Alabama is the state where federal judges found intentional racial discrimination in redistricting. Not an inference, but an explicit factual finding that the legislature deliberately diluted Black voting power and refused to fix it even after being ordered to.
Rep. Shomari Figures’ seat exists because a court intervened to enforce the Voting Rights Act. Alabama is now arguing that intervention is invalid. Alabama is asking the court to expedite — meaning a ruling before the 2026 election, possibly within weeks.
Watch Gov. Kay Ivey, who said she won’t call a special session to redraw Alabama’s lines until the injunction is lifted. A 2023 federal court order said Alabama could not change its map until after the 2030 census — that’s the wall Marshall is now trying to demolish.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the GOP frontrunner for Alabama governor, posted his reaction on X:
That’s how a Republican senator celebrates the unwinding of the Voting Rights Act in the state where John Lewis was nearly beaten to death for trying to register Black voters.
5. May Day Economic Blackout Hits The US Today
Coordinated May Day protests are happening in cities across the country today under the banner “May Day Strong,” with organizers calling for a full economic blackout — no work, no school, no shopping.
The coalition behind today’s actions includes nearly 500 organizations spanning labor unions, immigration advocates, civil rights groups, and progressive political organizations, with more than 750 events planned nationwide. The movement draws explicitly on the 2006 “Day Without Immigrants” as its model — a protest that demonstrated economic leverage through absence rather than presence.
This is the third major mass protest event of Trump’s second term, following “Hands Off” in April 2025 and “No Kings” last year — and it’s the first one organized explicitly around economic anxiety rather than a single policy. That shift in framing matters. When protests move from “stop this specific thing” to “the whole system isn’t working for us,” it signals something deeper than issue-based activism.
Watch participation numbers carefully. Whether private-sector workers actually stay home orthis remains largely students and public employees tell us a lot. A genuine work stoppage would be significant. A rally-heavy day with normal economic activity would suggest the movement has further to go to convert anger into leverage.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson put it plainly: “It was in our city that workers organized around the simple demand of an eight-hour workday and raised the consciousness of a gilded nation.” Whether today raises consciousness or raises actual pressure on the administration is the question that won’t be answered until November.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
Trump Lawyer Alina Habba Gets Grilled on The View Over the Comey Indictment. Former Trump attorney and ex-White House counselor Alina Habba appeared on The View Wednesday and walked into a buzzsaw when the conversation turned to the Justice Department’s new indictment of James Comey. Co-host Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, pressed Habba on Comey’s “8647” Instagram post, the basis for the federal threat charges. Habba’s defense: “He is a former FBI director. He knows what 86 47 meant. There’s no question about it.” Hostin pointed out that the term “86” is most often used in restaurants to mean tossing out a food item, and noted that Trump himself has posted things like “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” without ever facing federal charges. The segment moved through Comey, the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, and a string of the administration’s most controversial moves, with Habba defending each one. The Comey case itself remains the headline. The federal government is prosecuting a former FBI director over a photo of seashells, while the sitting president posts threats about killing political opponents and faces no consequences at all. And look, you don’t need a law degree to see the asymmetry. One of these people is being indicted. The other one runs the Justice Department.
Scott Jennings Loses It When Asked to Name a Single Iran Concession. Conservative commentator Scott Jennings melted down on Thursday after 23-year-old MeidasTouch commentator Adam Mockler asked him to name one political concession the U.S. has gotten from Iran since the war began. Jennings's answer, on live television, was to tell Mockler to "get your f---ing hand out of my face," after earlier mocking him for being out "past your bedtime" and having "the attention span of a gnat." Pressed again on what the U.S. had actually achieved in nine weeks of war, Jennings pivoted to abstractions about keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. He never named a concession, because there isn't one to name. Mockler's parting line was the cleanest version of the exchange: "Thank you. I would get mad too." This is what defending an unpopular war looks like in week nine. The pro-war side has run out of arguments and is left with insults. And look, when your best response to "name one thing this war has accomplished" is to curse at a 23-year-old on national television, the country has already figured out the answer.
Trump’s Third Surgeon General Pick Comes From the Fox News Greenroom. President Trump pulled Casey Means as his surgeon general nominee on Thursday and named Dr. Nicole Saphier, a longtime Fox News medical contributor, as his replacement. Means’ nomination had stalled in the Senate for months over her vague answers on vaccines, her past use of psilocybin, and the fact that her medical license has lapsed. Trump blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee handling the nomination, calling him “a very disloyal person” on Truth Social. Cassidy’s response was simple: “I can promise you there were multiple people on the committee who had decided to vote ‘no.’” Saphier is now the third surgeon general pick of Trump’s second term. The first, Janette Nesheiwat, was also a Fox News contributor and was withdrawn over questions about her credentials. The pattern is hard to miss. Trump’s pipeline for the nation’s top doctor runs through cable news, not medicine. And look, when you have to nominate three people in a row to fill one job, the problem isn’t the Senate. It’s the picks.
