Last week, the top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill released a joint statement — quite possibly having been told in no uncertain terms by the White House that the internecine fighting and finger-pointing over an unresolved Department of Homeland Security funding fight needed to cease immediately.

The new agreement was greeted with consternation among many rank-and-file House Republicans, who are livid at the Senate for unanimously waving through a bill that funds most of the homeland security apparatus, excluding Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After the upper chamber did so and then left town, the House GOP responded by passing a two-month stopgap funding bill that didn’t exclude immigration enforcement. Then it also left town.

Incompatible, competing pieces of legislation left the problem festering, while members flew home. This was a bad look for Republicans, who nominally control both houses of Congress, even though Democrats had been responsible for causing and sustaining the shutdown for a month and a half.

Amid the dysfunction, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) published a statement together, effectively backing the Senate’s plan, apparently with the president’s support.

“In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” they........

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