Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., doesn't believe that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., would be honest brokers in the upcoming DHS negotiations. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
When asked if he viewed Jeffries, who rebelled against Schumer’s funding deal with President Donald Trump, as a good-faith partner in the coming back-and-forth, Thune said, "He’s just not."
"He and, for that matter, Leader Schumer, both are afraid of their shadows, and they're getting a lot of rollback and pressure from their left," Thune said. "So, I don't think they want to — particularly in [Jeffries’] case, I don't think he wants to make a deal at all."
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President Donald Trump during a bill signing to end the partial government shutdown in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Feb. 3, 2026. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, DHS is currently operating under a two-week continuing resolution (CR) that maintains previous funding levels until Congress can pass legislation to fully fund it. But Thune and other Republicans believe that the truncated time period just isn’t long enough to actually hash out a deal.
And it's an open question whether Congress will again need to temporarily extend the funding patch, or allow the agency to shut down.
Compounding frustrations among Republicans is that the original DHS bill was the product of bipartisan negotiations and included several guardrails and reporting requirements targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would limit or block funding if they weren’t met.
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"I think they want to litigate, have the issue as a political issue," Thune said. "Whether or not there’s a solution remains to be seen, but at least what they're saying publicly suggests that that's not their objective."
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/thune-blasts-jeffries-schumer-afraid-shadows-dhs-funding-fight-heats-up