Republicans are redrafting a provision in their immigration enforcement bill that would direct security funding toward parts of President Donald Trump’s ballroom project, according to four people granted anonymity to report details of the talks.

The decision comes after a bipartisan meeting Friday with the Senate parliamentarian on the portion of the bill that could inject taxpayer funding into the controversial project. Republicans and Democrats made their respective cases for and against $1 billion in Secret Service funding — roughly $220 million of which, according to administration estimates, could go toward the East Wing “hardening.”

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough hasn’t yet delivered a formal ruling on the Judiciary Committee-drafted text, but Republicans are making changes in response to the hourslong meeting. Even after the initial ruling, Republicans will need to defend the revised text in a meeting with MacDonough, meaning talks will likely go through the weekend.

“Technical adjustments are a standard part of the budget reconciliation process. Revisions and conversations with the parliamentarian are ongoing to ensure the text is fully Byrd compliant,” Judiciary Committee Republicans posted Friday night on X.

A Senate Democratic aide, granted anonymity to disclose the talks, said that “Democrats will continue to challenge every line of new bill text that is shared with Democrats.”

In addition to the changes being made because of discussions with the parliamentarian, Senate GOP leaders have also been discussing potential changes to the Secret Service and East Wing language. That is to address concerns from some Republican members, who have been uneasy with taxpayer funding going toward the construction project and want more details from the White House.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has taken some steps to improve his department’s relationship with Capitol Hill. Lawmakers in both parties, however, say there’s much more to be done before the damage from his predecessor’s tenure is repaired.

Senate Republicans, largely adulatory of Mullin’s early efforts to change course at the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledge that the poor relationship between DHS and its Senate committee of jurisdiction is limiting productive engagement.

Tensions still exist between Mullin and the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has lashed the Homeland Security secretary for not having what he considers the proper temperament for the role. The enmity between the two men burst out in public view during Mullin’s March confirmation hearing, when Paul upbraided Mullin for disparaging comments Mullin had made about a violent 2017 attack against the Kentucky Republican.

“There needs to be a good relationship between the secretary of Homeland Security and the chairman of the committee,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said. Declining to say if any members are working to smooth over the relationship between the two, Scott emphasized: “I think it’s important they figure out how to have a positive human relationship.”

Paul declined to comment on his relationship with Mullin. While Paul was also a critic of former Secretary Kristi Noem’s heavy-handed approach to deportations, his frustrations with Noem did not appear as personal.

The White House has also been slow to embrace Mullin as its go-to representative on Blue Light News for DHS matters. As funding legislation snaked its way through Congress in March and April, the White House mainly dispatched border czar Tom Homan to talk to lawmakers, casting Mullin into a less direct role in the push to end the monthslong shutdown of his department.

That omission is all the more striking given that Mullin, who represented Oklahoma in both the House and Senate, was hailed as a Capitol Hill dealmaker when he was nominated. Mullin had also vowed to be accessible and very communicative with Congress during his confirmation hearing. Early reports had also suggested he was trying to play a role during his confirmation process as a broker for a funding deal.

Many of those dynamics will be on sharp display this month when Mullin returns to testify before the House Appropriations Committee, his first public appearance before his former colleagues since he entered the Cabinet. His testimony at an oversight hearing, which has been postponed after it was initially scheduled for Monday, will give lawmakers their first chance to publicly press Mullin on his efforts at the department.

DHS said in a statement that “while serving in his new role as DHS Secretary, he’s continuing this leadership style and is in constant communication with leaders on Capitol Hill, his 22 agency heads, and the White House to deliver on President Trump’s promise to protect the homeland.”

The department added that “the secretary’s number one priority was re-opening DHS and getting the patriots who protect our homeland paid. His relationships with his former colleagues — on both sides of the aisle — were critical to getting DHS re-opened.”

Mullin is making inroads on Blue Light News. He and White House deputy chief of staff James Braid met with members of the Republican Governance Group on Wednesday, signaling Mullin may play a larger role in the unfolding effort to secure funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection via a to-be-negotiated reconciliation bill.

One bright spot has been the House, where Mullin’s relationship with Republican lawmakers is uniformly better. House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said Mullin has briefed his committee since taking office. And both Garbarino and Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), the top House appropriator on the subcommittee that funds DHS, said communication from DHS has improved under Mullin’s watch.

“We do have an open line of communication,” Garbarino said. “Dealing with his team has been very good, and I think the information coming out of HQ is not as siloed as it was previously.”

But Democrats still have many concerns about DHS and Mullin, at a time when slim margins in the House and Senate have made potential Democratic support useful in sticky legislative battles.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he’s met with Mullin since his former colleague’s confirmation as DHS secretary. But when asked about Mullin’s leadership of DHS, he demurred.

“I think we’ve still got to wait and see,” Peters said.

There were high hopes from Republicans going into Mullin’s confirmation that he would repair what many saw as an unproductive relationship between DHS and Capitol Hill. Senators identified his predecessor’s rough relationship with Capitol Hill as one of the reasons for her downfall.

Noem “wasn’t as engaged with senators as some of her Cabinet colleagues,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said. “That became a problem when she needed some support when she was getting attacked.”

While Mullin was not a major driver of negotiations to restore funding for DHS, the secretary was a fixture on news shows, arguing that Democrats were hurting U.S. national security by keeping his department shuttered. In particular, Mullin singled out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a “lying scumbag politician” for what he characterized as dishonest messaging around Democrats’ opposition to funding legislation.

There’s no love lost with Senate Democrats over that. Schumer’s office said in a statement that Mullin “can throw around insults all he wants, but the facts are the facts: Senate Democrats passed bipartisan DHS funding bills twice, and House Republicans sat on them for more than 70 days — holding up funding for TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and other critical agencies because they refused basic accountability for ICE and CBP.”

That caustic performance did not cost him with most Republicans. Amodei said in an interview that “my initial impressions are excellent. Communications culture has done a 180 … he’s been put there to be a leader.”

Congressional confidence in Mullin is likely to get him over these current hurdles, argued Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a past chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

“He’s a creature of Congress, and a creature not in a bad sense,” McCaul said. “We know him from the House. The Senate knows him. That always helps … there’s a level of trust with Markwayne there that helps a lot.”

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) announced Friday he would not seek reelection later this year, after his Memphis-based House seat was dismantled amid the redistricting battles sweeping the country after last month’s Supreme Court decision.

Cohen told reporters that his decision not to run was by far the most difficult moment he’s had as an elected official.

The 10-term House incumbent’s decision to end his campaign came days after Tennessee’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a new congressional map that eliminated Cohen’s majority Black district, likely securing them an all-GOP federal delegation.

Tennessee is one of a handful of GOP-controlled states in the South racing to dismantle majority Black seats after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

“Since my first election in 2006, I’ve had nine reelects and I haven’t lost a precinct in my reelects,” he said. “I think that’s unique in Congress, but it’s unique in America that an African American majority district has elected a white guy.”

Cohen has been the sole Democratic representative in Tennessee’s nine-member U.S. House delegation for the last several years. Before the state’s map was redrawn, Cohen was in a tough primary race against 31-year-old state Rep. Justin Pearson. Pearson has said he will continue with his campaign, but the new district is dramatically redder.

“I’m not a quitter. But these districts were drawn to beat me,” Cohen said.