Meet the New Boss

Today’s notice: Mullin gets a new job, and possibly a new funding stream for that job. Marco Rubio, character witness. The latest from an increasingly nasty Democratic Senate primary in Maine. And: Everybody wants a housing bill but nobody wants the housing bill.

THE LATEST

Is a DHS funding deal now actually possible? “You’ll have to talk to the senators about that,” freshly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters last night, just minutes after his time as a senator ended.

Mullin was confirmed by the chamber 54-45, with “yes” votes from two Democrats (John Fetterman and Martin Heinrich) and every Republican except for Rand Paul. The promise from the White House is that Mullin will bring an end to the Kristi Noem era of DHS and begin a new, less controversial one.

But the department funding fight, which began as a way for Democrats to slow Noem’s roll when it came to immigration enforcement efforts, is now the first headache of Mullin’s term. NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer and Al Weaver report that a two-hour meeting at the White House with Donald Trump, Mullin, border czar Tom Homan and some key Senate Republicans may have produced real results.

One of the meeting attendees, Sen. Steve Daines, told NOTUS that they are close to a deal: Democrats agree to support a funding bill for all of DHS except ICE, and then Republicans get to work on securing some of that ICE funding, as well as elements of the SAVE America Act, in a new reconciliation bill that wouldn’t need Democratic votes.

“I am going to be working through the night,” Sen. Katie Britt said last night of her plan to get this deal moving, fast.

Open tabs: New top prosecutor named in New Jersey, ending impasse over U.S attorney’s office (WaPo); The Supreme Court Appears Poised to Limit Mail-In Voting Deadlines (NOTUS); Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump’s market-turning post (CNBC); The Trump-inspired realignment of the conservative think tank world (Politico)

From Florida

Under oath: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to raise his right hand in a Miami courthouse today, as he takes a break from America’s military excursions to testify on behalf of an old friend, NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports.

That friend is a former Republican congressman, David Rivera, who stands accused of enriching himself by illegally lobbying for Venezuela. The case has taken on a new dimension in recent months because it relies on a foreign influence law that Trump himself has panned after it took down several of his closest advisers, Jose writes.

It has all the trappings of a potential international spectacle. Rivera built his career espousing the rigid anti-left stance of Miami’s Cuban American community, and the case has plenty of intrigue: Latin American petro politics, shell companies, shadowy meetings. Included in the saga is Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned gas and oil company that recently received a reprieve on sanctions from the Trump administration.

From the campaign trail

Note: The ad features sound effects covering the slurs. That’s a line from a press release announcing the latest negative ad aimed at Graham Platner in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary after Gov. Janet Mills shifted her campaign into attack mode last week. NOTUS’ Alex Roarty got a look at the latest spot, which again focuses on Platner’s rich history of regrettable posting.

From the Pentagon

The Defense Department laid out a new set of restrictions for its press corps: a forthcoming media annex “outside the Pentagon, but still on Pentagon grounds,” closure of the traditional areas reporters have been able to access and a requirement that reporters be escorted at all times in the building. The new rules come on the heels of a courtroom loss to The New York Times.

From your favorite podcast app

In this week’s On NOTUS, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma sits down with host Reese Gorman to talk about the status of the Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations, Markwayne Mullin’s new job at DHS and why he won’t vote to change the filibuster, even to pass bills he supports like the SAVE America Act.

“I’ve got some folks that somehow believe that if you yell loud enough, all the Democrats on the left will cower and they’ll just walk away, and that’s not how real life works in the Senate,” Lankford told Reese.

THE BIG ONE

The housing bill blame game: Both chambers of Congress have passed their own versions of a bipartisan housing bill, and Trump has said he’s open to signing something. But NOTUS’ Oriana González and Raymond Fernández report on the measure’s murky legislative future, which has led to plenty of finger-pointing.

Elizabeth Warren is the new bad guy. In pushing to get the Senate version passed, she has discouraged housing advocacy groups and stakeholders from publicly calling for a conference or negotiations between the two chambers, Oriana and Raymond report. Democratic House members say their calls for negotiations have been rebuffed by Warren’s team, too.

“House Republicans should put the [Senate] bill on the floor,” Warren said in a statement. “Doing anything less will fail American families struggling with sky-high housing costs.”

Before Warren, Tim Scott was the problem. The Republican senator was accused of not returning calls from the Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, who wants changes to the upper chamber’s legislation, too.

The White House calls the Senate bill “a priority for the president.” But the bottom line is that House lawmakers still don’t like it.

NEW ON NOTUS

Blocked (temporarily): A federal judge has stopped DHS from detaining refugees who haven’t obtained green cards, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. Federal lawyers failed to defend the Trump administration’s own policy, which instructed agents to arrest refugees who didn’t obtain a green card within a year of arriving in the country. The order prevents DHS from enforcing its policy for the duration of the litigation.

More: Elizabeth Warren Has Questions About MrBeast’s New Youth Cryptocurrency App, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Trump Is Digging Up Washington. Can Lawsuits Stop the Bulldozers? By Zach Montague for The New York Times
  
• They once called him a ‘goose-stepping extremist.’ They’re now sitting out his comeback bid. By Samuel Benson and Alec Hernandez for Politico
  
• Could the Girls of Camp Mystic Have Been Saved? By Kerry Howley for New York
  
• Folks, We’ve Got Yet Another Right-Wing Media Payola Scandal, by Will Sommer for The Bulwark

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