NOTUS: “House Republican leadership said Friday that they will not vote on the Senate’s funding deal for the Department of Homeland Security, and the Senate has already skipped town for a two week recess.”
Punchbowl News reports the House GOP will propose a 60-day continuing resolution for all of Homeland Security.
Politico: “Speaker Mike Johnson declined to say Friday whether he will keep the House in over the weekend to pass the Department of Homeland Security funding agreement the Senate approved hours earlier.”
CBS News: “The Iranian response to the U.S.’ 15-point framework for a peace deal is expected on Friday.”
“President Trump and top White House officials have been told that Iran’s counter-proposal would likely arrive Friday via interlocutors.”
CNN: “A US Secret Service special agent on former first lady Jill Biden’s security detail accidentally shot their own leg at the Philadelphia International Airport Friday morning, an agency official said.”
Robert Pape: “Since February, the United States has surged more than 150 aircraft, two carrier strike groups, over a dozen warships, and tens of thousands of personnel into the region. Airbases have expanded. Missile defense systems have been reinforced. Command integration under United States Central Command has tightened. Now, airborne infantry—forces designed for rapid insertion and early-stage ground operations—are being added to that structure.”
“This is not a signaling exercise. It is a structural shift in military posture.”
“Air campaigns can escalate quickly. Sustained presence cannot. It requires fuel, maintenance, logistics, and time. It creates commitment even before a formal decision is made. Each additional deployment narrows the gap between capability and action.”
“Trump’s rhetoric remains ambiguous. The deployments do not.”
USA Today: “With more than 3,100 events planned nationwide to protest President Donald Trump’s actions and policies, organizers expect the No Kings protests to draw millions of Americans into the streets March 28.”
“Two earlier No Kings protests brought out huge crowds, and organizers hope this event will be among the largest days of protest in U.S. history.”
A new Fox News poll finds 64% of Americans are dissatisfied with how things are going in the U.S.
Politico: “It’s not just Hormuz. There’s a second strait in the Middle East vital to global energy markets that Iran is threatening to close if President Donald Trump fails to wind down the Iran war.”
“The world is already experiencing the worst disruption to global energy markets in history following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. But if Iranian proxies close the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a busy Red Sea choke point — it would compound global financial woes and likely push oil prices to $150 a barrel, experts said.”
Financial Times: “Iran is working to establish a system of approved passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a tightening of control over the crucial waterway that Tehran suggests could extend beyond its war with the US and Israel.”
Energy Common Sense: “Ethylene, methanol, and petrochemical feedstocks, the inputs that underpin manufacturing, agriculture, and industrial systems, are tightening. More than half of global refining capacity has been impacted, along with significant shares of ethylene and methanol production, and those constraints are already showing up in prices, particularly across Asia, where the effects are most acute.”
“Energy disruption does not stay in energy; it moves through everything energy touches.”
A special panel of the House Ethics Committee has found that Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) was guilty of more than two dozen ethics violations, Punchbowl News reports.
The full Ethics Committee will meet next month to decide what sanctions to recommend to the House. Expulsion is a real possibility.
Forbes says Donald Trump is now worth $6.5 billion, which is roughly $1.4 billion more than he was worth last year.
Reuters: “The United States can only determine with certainty that it has destroyed about a third of Iran’s vast missile arsenal as the U.S. and Israeli war on the country nears its one-month mark, according to five people familiar with the U.S. intelligence.”
“The status of around another third is less clear but bombings likely damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers.”
“Nearly one month after the U.S. began strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump is sending thousands of troops to the Middle East to potentially fight in a war he said he has ‘already won,'” MS NOW reports.
“That contradiction has frustrated some senior White House aides and outside allies… They described it as confusing, internally inconsistent and increasingly detached from battlefield reality.”
“Trump calling the war already won is ‘mostly hyperbole,’ said a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s thinking. ‘It’s part of Trump just wanting to declare victory and move on.'”
Said the official: “Trump is getting a little bored with Iran. Not that he regrets it or something — he’s just bored and wants to move on.”
“The Republican-led effort to put Utah’s redistricting law back on the ballot fell below the required threshold in one state Senate district on Wednesday after a signature removal campaign by supporters of Proposition 4,” the Deseret News reports.
“This means that the repeal of Prop 4 will not appear on the ballot despite $4.35 million spent on professional signature gathering, involvement from Turning Point Action and an endorsement from President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr.”
A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds 13% of Americans who cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2024 say they regret how they voted in the last election.
Among Kamala Harris voters, just 6% say the same.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
