{"id":20450,"date":"2026-03-23T19:46:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T19:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/no-dhs-talks-expected-until-mullin-is-confirmed-white-house-official-says\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T19:46:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T19:46:54","slug":"no-dhs-talks-expected-until-mullin-is-confirmed-white-house-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/no-dhs-talks-expected-until-mullin-is-confirmed-white-house-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"No DHS talks expected until Mullin is confirmed, White House official says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The White House is holding off on further DHS funding negotiations until the Senate confirms Oklahoma Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/198817\" data-person-id=\"198817\">Markwayne Mullin<\/a> to lead the agency, according to a White House official, granted anonymity to share internal thinking.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats have previously canceled meetings, and given Mullin is close to confirmation, the official said, aides to President Donald Trump believe it\u2019s better to wait so he can be a &#8220;full and active&#8221; participant in funding talks from the DHS side.<\/p>\n<p>The White House earlier in the day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/03\/23\/congress\/no-dhs-meeting-today-00839872\" target=\"_blank\">rejected a Monday morning meeting<\/a>with a bipartisan group of senators who have been negotiating to end the DHS shutdown. Democrats had previously canceled a Saturday meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate is scheduled to vote on Mullin&#8217;s confirmation shortly before 8 p.m. Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Some Senate Republicans are aiming to meet with Trump on Monday night to discuss the DHS funding situation, although no meeting has been officially scheduled.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, would be to try to pitch Trump on a plan to fund all of DHS except specific pieces of ICE, which have already been funded through last year&#8217;s megabill.<\/p>\n<p>Trump was in Memphis, Tenn., earlier in the day, attending an anti-crime event and paying a visit to Graceland, Elvis Presley&#8217;s former home.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51242\" data-person-id=\"51242\">John Thune<\/a> said he expected additional meetings Monday but declined to say who was involved: &#8220;Conversations continue,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><i>Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The White House is holding off on further DHS funding negotiations until the Senate confirms Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to lead the agency, according to a White House official, granted anonymity to share internal thinking. Democrats have previously canceled meetings, and given Mullin is close to confirmation, the official said, aides to President Donald Trump [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}