Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche cited the chaos of Saturday night’s shooting in a blunt message to Congress: Stop “playing games” with funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
“I hope this is a wake-up call to Congress,” Mr. Blanche said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I hope this is a wake-up call that the games that they’ve been playing, really with the lives of the men and women protecting them, should end.”
He said lawmakers who attended the dinner and witnessed the Secret Service response firsthand should come away with a new appreciation for the agents they have been using “as pawns in their political game.”
“I do hope that they get to work now and get a deal done, which is what President Trump has been asking for for months now,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Secret Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, has been shut down since mid-February, after Democrats blocked funding in the wake of the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents.
An administration official told CNN this month that Secret Service protective agents are being paid through President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Still, the stalemate over future funding has hung a cloud of uncertainty over the agency and raised concerns about national security.
A Secret Service agent was shot Saturday, but was wearing a bulletproof vest and survived.
The Senate took the first steps last week toward reopening the department through the reconciliation process, over Democratic objections.
The measure now heads to the House.
Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, agreed that Congress should fund the DHS but drew a sharp line, saying his party would not support financing what he called unlawful ICE raids targeting American citizens and immigrants.
“The Democrats have been saying we want to fund DHS. We just don’t want to fund ICE agents with the ICE raids against American citizens and against immigrants in ways that broke the law,” Mr. Khanna said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have done that many, many times.”
