Miles Parks

One other point, though, I would make to what you were pointing to before about just the news cycle moving so quickly.

In, say, just the last six months, that first government shutdown, that was about health subsidies.

That was eating up all of the oxygen in Congress.

Then we had action in Venezuela and immigration and then Iran and then back to immigration.

And so the news cycle is moving so quickly that it can be very hard to keep focus on one particular issue for a very long time when something new is always going to be around the corner.

Yeah, I mean, this is something that I've heard from some lawmakers saying that this is a particularly dangerous time not to have the Department of Homeland Security fully funded.

Though I should note that essential jobs at DHS are still being staffed when there is a shutdown.

But some are working without pay, like we've heard with TSA agents.

Though, you know, as we've talked about in these last couple of minutes, the news cycle has moved so fast that there's a little bit less focus on Iran right now than there was

Just a week ago, that could again change if, you know, there is something that brings it back to the forefront of the news cycle.

I don't know about most likely, but that is one potential off-ramp here.

We've heard from a couple of those Democrats who joined with Republicans to end the shutdown last fall that they might be open to some kind of deal that leaves aside funding for ICE, but it would have to include specific assurances to make sure that funding for one part of ICE isn't used to do immigration enforcement by just moving money around.

And that's one concern that we're hearing from some of those Democrats.

And so yeah, that is one possibility here.

But so far, Democrats have remained pretty unified against the Republicans offers.

I should just add that another dynamic here, too, is personal for lawmakers in that they are supposed to be heading off on a two-week recess over the Easter and Passover holidays.

Lawmakers are wanting to get home.

And so sometimes this Thursday night zone before recess can be a moment that really pushes lawmakers to come together around something.

Though, again, we have also heard from Senate Majority Leader John Thune that he's willing to keep people over the weekend to keep them into the recess if this deal doesn't get done.

And so we will certainly be watching whether anything comes together.