Dem
47
GOP
53
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has now effectively said that legislating is none of his business. That is the president's job. If the Democrats don't want to pass the House bills in front of them, then they must go negotiate with Donald Trump directly. After all, the power of the purse belongs to the Executive Branch, so it is not his job to negotiate with Senate Democrats about passing legislation to fund the government.
In particular, he doesn't want to split the DHS funding from the rest because he understands that if the government is fully funded except DHS, the Democrats will demand the sun, the moon, and the stars in return for agreeing to fund DHS and will be in no hurry to do it no matter what. He doesn't want the blame for that situation, so he is passing that hot potato to Trump. If there is ever a new version of Profiles in Courage, Thune is not going to get a chapter. Or even a footnote, for that matter.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) once again said he wanted to split up the funding into DHS and "other" and pass the "other" immediately, but Thune wanted no part of that as it would give up his leverage and infuriate Trump. He is scared to death of that. Schumer pointed out that the bills for funding the various departments are all well isolated, so splitting them is easy. He said that the DHS bill needs some work after the death of Alex Pretti. Splitting the bills and passing all but DHS would fund 96% of the government, but there was no way Thune was willing to stick out his neck, even though he is not up until 2028.
Assuming Thune continues to view legislating as something above his pay grade, Schumer will have to talk to Trump directly. Trump understands that funding 96% of the government and leaving DHS out to dry will effectively be "defund ICE" since the Democrats will have no incentive to fund it without major, major reforms. He probably won't budge, so a government shutdown is likely. If that happens, Republicans will claim Democrats want to defund ICE. If Democrats are smart, they will say, "No, we want to reform ICE." (See next item.) (V)