Michael Gold

This was not a shutdown about America's airports.

When this started, everyone knew that the airports would likely be affected at some point.

But Democrats were really resolute that this was about immigration enforcement.

And they don't want to come to a deal that doesn't address their concern that federal immigration agents are out of control, they need to be reined in, and that there needs to be legislation that can address what Democrats see as abuses by the system.

And Republicans still maintain that Democrats are asking for too much and that it's time to do something about what's going on at the airports.

Look at these TSA agents who have not been paid for weeks, and they say it's time for us to do something about this.

And I think as we've seen these lines get out of control in airports across the country, a lot of Democrats are looking at this too and saying, okay, the pressure's on.

It's time for us to reach a deal.

Let's see if we can come together and make something happen.

And so you're seeing these negotiations, which had been kind of happening at a snail's pace for the last few weeks, really start to pick up steam.

Yeah, I want to be careful here.

And I should say it's Wednesday afternoon as we're talking.

And as is often the case with any negotiations in Congress, they're both very loud and very fragile at the same time.

So just—

Let's just start from that baseline when we talk about what's going on.

But we really saw a lot of movement toward a deal.

And I think it makes sense to start with last week when Tom Homan, who's the White House border czar, came to Capitol Hill to meet with a bipartisan group of senators and talk about a way to end the crisis.

This is the first time that Homan came since Trump put him in charge of immigration in Minneapolis.

And it was a real sign to senators and to those of us who watched them that the White House was ready to find a way to bring an end to this whole situation.

So Homan comes and he sends a letter to two Senate Republicans saying, we're open to making some changes on immigration enforcement and some changes to the way that ICE operates.