"It's exactly what we wanted," Schumer told reporters just now. Said Republicans could have ended shutdown 3 weeks ago by accepting Dem offer then to fund all by ICE/Border Patrol while talks continue. Praised his caucus for not budging on their demands for ICE reforms; will continue to push

Pilot on my flight: “Air travel is not fun right now. Please be nice to each other. I don’t want to be on CNN. Let’s just go home.”

Thune told us they are going to try and fund as much of the DHS as possible; note Democrats have previously tried to fund everything except Border Patrol and ICE but Rs blocked, so bulk of the shutdown could *potentially* end tonight. (And much of BP/ICE is prefunded by OBBB)

Thing is Republicans have blocked rifle shot legislation by Democrats to pay TSA agents for weeks. Was becoming untenable with Rs like Kennedy wanting to accept the offer… Trump just did it via executive order.

They let me write for it so please subscribe - it’s free!

"Senators in both parties said the airport mess had created a sense of urgency. ... First they have to get through a lot of what we’ll call failure theater in a dysfunctional Congress" @steventdennis.bsky.social

Today's Businessweek Daily comes from the great @steventdennis.bsky.social on how we got from a funding bill in Congress to these loooooooooooooong airport lines

🚨🚨🚨 Graham Platner blowing out Janet Mills and holds 7-point lead on 5-term Senator Susan Collins, per Emerson Poll. emersoncollegepolling.com/maine-2026-p...

Just as a general observation, deals are rarely cut on Tuesdays. Wednesday nights are more common, and there’s that Harry Reid saying: “Magic happens on Thursday nights”

New tonight: Senators are increasingly optimistic they will soon reach a deal to fund most of DHS including TSA after long lines snarled U.S. airports.

What is happening???

One of the things Robert Mueller detailed at length was Donald Trump’s secret efforts to pursue a Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign while telling the public he had nothing to do with Russia…

Over at the other place Elon Musk is offering to pay TSA's salaries. (His present net worth per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index is >50X TSA's annual ~$12 billion budget.) Top 2 replies I see are Mike Lee and Mike Flynn tweeting "Amazing..."

Putting the fiscal cost of the Iran war in context. $200 billion > $194.9 billion, which means that Trump is planning on spending more on the Iran war than he took in with his tariffs which raised tons of revenue. I wasn't sure this could be right, so I drew a graph, and it is.

This is a good question.

#$UAL *would* drop this on a Friday night wouldn’t they.

If anyone wants their own little single-shot of fun #fridaynightzillow, the Knabe piano house in Baltimore is still for sale: www.zillow.com/homedetails/... And only $3 million.

Sorry I just got home from the Capitol a little while ago. Another #FridayNightZillow ruined by Congress failing to Congress.

Susan Collins tells us the WH made a new offer tonight to the Democrats on DHS, but wishes the discussion went on longer. Democrats led by Patty Murray left after about an hour. Murray didn’t look happy but she didn’t say words when I asked her. Rs hope to meet tomorrow but say it’s up to the Dems

My 20-mile commute today required approximately 8 cents worth of electricity, in case anyone is looking for a way to fight high gas prices.

This is an extremely popular bike lane.

Perfect

A cost-saving innovation that is cutting repair expenses and eliminating monthslong supply delays didn’t come from a major Marine Corps program office. It started with a junior enlisted Marine. Learn more:

Wyden to Gabbard: "Last year, your agencies testified 'Iran's large conventional forces are capable of inflicting substantial damage to an attacker, executing regional strikes & disrupting shipping, particularly through Hormuz.' In other words, every problem were seeing now was predicted"

This is a graph of the April 2026 wholesale gasoline futures contract, from 1/20/2025 to today. They had been on a slight downward trend before the start of the year. And then — rocket ship.

Nate Cavanaugh has gone viral recently for his taped deposition about DOGE eliminating "DEI" grants. He's also a key figure in our story from last year. We found that he helped expose a sensitive Afghanistan program, leading to a brutal Taliban crackdown.

cnn is now running both a gas price tracker and tsa wait time tracker on its website

Schumer says the holdup remains the same as it has been for weeks; they want: * warrants signed by judges before entering homes and businesses without permission * end masking of immigration agents on US streets

A quote targeted to CNBC’s audience.

A journalist filed a brief live blog entry on an apparent Iranian missile strike that hit no one and caused no serious damage. Next thing he knew, angry Polymarket users were demanding he change the story—and threatening his life and family if he refused. My story: wapo.st/4lI6Pon (gift link)

What is the point of copyrights if the most powerful companies on earth can ignore them?

Cuba is, like, ground central station for hurricanes. I know others have pointed this out but this whopper really stands out.

Sean Penn skipped the Oscars and instead went to Ukraine www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/m...

Thinking of writing a book about public policies that are nearly universally popular that have little chance of becoming law via Congress and why. Thoughts? Do you have a favorite example?

There were bloggers during my time covering the Obama White House who wrote a ton about the golf outings and regularly were rewarded with enormous traffic and Drudge hits. They have all gone silent as far as I can tell on the issue of presidential recreation.

Donald Trump’s main outside political group has amassed more than $300 million ahead of the US midterms. The question is how he'll deploy it for Republican candidates.

it’s unreal how these grown-ass men had no problem destroying untold lives with chatGPT but go crying to a judge when people make fun of them online

Haitian woman, 31, dies alone at Pittsburgh bus stop days after ICE released her to the streets far from home to perish. Rest in power, Daphy Michel: migrantinsider.com/p/the-loneso...

CNN: Breaking news concerning several major airports in the DC area. There's currently a ground stop. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the FAA is working to address the source of a strong odor at an air traffic control facility which services those airports

Hakeem Jeffries would be speaker if ~6,000 voters had voted for Democrats instead of Republicans in just 3 Congressional districts. Drove trillions in tax cuts, spending cuts, regulation cuts, the ICE surge, Defense buildup, etc. I'm always surprised when people say politics doesn't matter.

Every time this year I think *maybe* today is the Friday I can Zillow and chill, something happens.

Biggest cost of the Iran war will likely be hit to the global economy, not military hardware. Every dollar of oil market premiums adds ~$100M/day to global costs. Then there are spiking fertilizer prices, insurance, growing potential for shortages.

Thune refrain this week: “We don’t have the votes”

Lawyers…

The breast cancer center appealed thousands of Blue Cross reimbursements for being too low. At trial, the insurer revealed that it had never considered any of the appeals — and that they were pointless: “An appeal is not available to review an underpayment.” (Published April 2025)

ooooh temu figured out it's now shorthand for "cheap off-brand garbage" and is not happy about it

Senate Ag Chair John Boozman tells me he wants a bailout of farmers because of soaring costs of gasoline, diesel and fertilizer after Trump's attack on Iran caused prices to skyrocket. “If you’re growing something in the ground right now, you’re losing money.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Here’s the story of the guy who brought the first deep dish pizza shop to DC as well as the first pizza delivery trucks

Senate Ag Chair John Boozman tells me he wants a bailout of farmers because of soaring costs of gasoline, diesel and fertilizer after Trump's attack on Iran caused prices to skyrocket. “If you’re growing something in the ground right now, you’re losing money.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

One winner so far: Russia. US is easing sanctions on them in an effort to contain soaring oil prices, which means more money for their war effort against US ally Ukraine.