The Department of Homeland Security remains partially shut down this week, as Republicans and Democrats fail to resolve their ongoing funding disagreement and oversight questions about the department’s extreme deportation operations. Congressional negotiators have shown “few signs of backing down from their demands,” with “little holding back” further negotiations from “dragging on for the foreseeable future,” said The Hill. Despite the ongoing gridlock, much of DHS’s most visible work will likely remain relatively uninterrupted, as officials have newfound latitude to shift the department’s supercharged budget. 

Because much of the department’s operations are “focused on activities that protect life and property,” that work is “therefore considered essential,” said CNN. That includes “those related to immigration and drug trafficking,” as well as port inspections, Secret Service operations and other similar assignments. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection Agency operations are also “unlikely to be significantly affected” by the partial shutdown, since the Trump-backed Big Beautiful Bill already “allocates billions of dollars to immigration enforcement,” said Fox News. 

The “political calculus” for this DHS-specific partial shutdown “differs from that in past shutdown situations,” said MS NOW. Most federal services are “flowing normally” since only DHS is affected. And with ICE and CBP flush with funds, other agencies will feel the crunch first, with TSA agents expected to see the closure “hit their paychecks” in mid-March. Broadly, Democrats have “less incentive to capitulate” on their demands for increased DHS oversight, said CNBC, given the “limited scope of the shutdown” and public disapproval of the White House’s deportation operations.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered the sharpest look to date at the White House’s foreign policy ethos, extolling the virtues of ultranationalism and offering unvarnished criticism of immigration in overtly pro-imperialist remarks at the annual Munich Security Conference over the weekend. Rubio “made the future of MAGA’s foreign policy clear,” said Axios, warning of the “dangers of mass migration, while emphasizing the shared heritage between Europe and the U.S.”

Sent ostensibly to bolster far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of a spring general election, Rubio’s European visit is the “latest sign of an institutionalized shift to the right in U.S. foreign policy” and a “rejection of traditional stances,” said CNN. Rubio’s speech channeled Europe’s populist parties that have rebelled against “liberal establishments in European states using Trump’s model.” 

His tone was softer than that of Vice President JD Vance’s harsh address at last year’s conference, but the message was similar. Where Vance used his speech to “berate and insult,” there was “something more urgently coaxing in Rubio’s tone,” said The Atlantic. Reaffirming opposition to globalization and migration, Rubio’s speech wasn’t “nearly as simple-minded” as those by other White House figures.

Rubio’s speech could “only be described” as a more than 20-minute “ode to empire” and a “proud defense of the West’s territorial expansion,” said The Guardian. His presence and subdued tone at the conference “underscored” the degree to which European leaders have been “shaken by Trump's tariffs and criticisms of NATO, said Axios, as well as Vance’s speech last year.

Olsen reportedly has access to significant US intelligence