Lawmakers’ vacations have come under intense scrutiny following the longest partial shutdown in U.S. history.
House and Senate Republicans are out of sync, and DHS funding will not reach them.
With House and Senate Republicans operating on different wavelengths, there is no end in sight for the Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
WASHINGTON – Celebrity-obsessed TMZ has a new target: vacationing members of Congress.
Since the Capitol adjourned last week after failing to end the nearly seven-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown, tabloids have set their sights on shaming lawmakers who were absent from town during the crisis.
Thousands of other DHS workers still haven’t received their checks, despite President Donald Trump’s intervention to direct funds to pay airport security workers. The scrutiny is increasing day by day. Just days into Congress’ spring break, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt called on lawmakers to return to Washington.
So far, the politician drawing the most attention in the hot seat is Sen. Lindsey Graham, an ally of President Trump. The South Carolina Republican was spotted carrying a bubble wand around Disney World over the weekend, specifically the Magic Kingdom area of the Sunshine State Resort.
Graham told TMZ he was originally in the area for work. Graham, an Iran war hawk, said he was invited to meet with Steve Witkoff, a senior Trump administration foreign policy official, in South Florida on March 27 to discuss normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. After that, I went to Orlando for a short time to meet a friend.
“I voted seven times to fully fund the government,” he said. “Call the Democrats.” A spokesperson for Graham did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was also spotted visiting a casino in Las Vegas in recent days. Garcia publicly featured photos of herself and said she was visiting her father, who has lived in Las Vegas for 15 years.
“I just finished lunch with him and I try to see him whenever I can,” the lawmaker said in a social media post. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson “should never have sent all of us home,” Garcia said.
Johnson said in a March 31 interview on “Fox & Friends” that members of Congress are “working in their own districts right now.”
“We can bring them back right away to vote,” he said. “The Senate must do its job and help with this heavy lifting.”
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told Republican senators over the weekend that they would not resume session unless they could pass a realistic solution to the shutdown. To do so, he will need the help of at least some Democrats who have remained out of love with their Republican colleagues since Johnson’s House Republicans abandoned a bipartisan agreement passed unanimously by the Senate to fully fund DHS in all areas except immigration.
Frustrated by this, President Trump is now threatening to reconvene Congress himself before the Legislature is scheduled to reopen in mid-April. In an interview with the New York Post published on March 31, he suggested he likely wouldn’t do so until after the Easter holidays.
“Maybe we’ll let them have Easter,” Trump said.
Zachary Schermele is a Congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can email us at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and on Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social..
