Last week, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security except for its immigration-related functions. House Republicans angrily rejected it, and it seemed the shutdown might drag on indefinitely. Then, with no warning, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced late on Wednesday that they had reached an agreement to do it the Senate’s way after all. So now Johnson will try to get the House to approve the Senate-passed bill, though he called the measure “a joke” recently enough that the words are still echoing in the Capitol.

What changed so abruptly? Well, officially the GOP explanation is that President Donald Trump gave restive conservatives some assurance that their vicious buddies in ICE and CBP will get years of assured funding — without any restrictions on their conduct — via a party-line budget-reconciliation bill that he wants on his desk by June 1, as he announced on Truth Social earlier on Wednesday. Trump did not announce that part of the deal involves House Republicans abandoning their fight to keep the rest of DHS shuttered until new ICE/CBP money is safely in the........

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