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Mar 24, 2026

Tuesday, March 24, 2026 · 7:00 a.m. ET

Federal Level

Trump Postpones Hormuz Deadline Five Days, Claims Productive Talks With Iran as Tehran Denies Negotiations

President Trump announced Monday that he would delay his threatened strikes on Iran’s power plants for five days, saying the United States and Iran had begun “good and productive” peace talks. Trump told reporters that Iran “wants peace” and that he believes the conflict could end with “a very good deal for everybody.” However, Tehran flatly denied that any negotiations had taken place, with Iran’s parliament speaker posting on social media that “no negotiations have been held with the U.S.” and calling Trump’s claims “fake news” aimed at manipulating oil markets. A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official told CBS News exclusively that Iran had “received points from the U.S. through mediators” and that they were being reviewed, and Reuters reported that direct talks could take place in Islamabad as early as this week. The announcement sent oil prices plunging more than 10 percent on Monday, with Brent crude settling below $100 per barrel for the first time since the war began, while stock markets around the world rallied sharply on hopes for a diplomatic resolution.^1,2,3,4

Iran Fires Missiles at Tel Aviv Early Tuesday as War Enters Its Fourth Week

Despite talk of potential peace negotiations, Iran launched three waves of missiles toward Israel early Tuesday morning, with at least one striking a building in Tel Aviv and killing at least four people. Iranian state media announced each salvo in real time, claiming the projectiles had passed through Israel’s missile defense systems. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke with Trump on Monday, said “there’s more to come” and indicated that Israel would not stop its military operations regardless of any diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran. According to CENTCOM, the United States has struck more than 9,000 Iranian targets, destroyed over 140 naval vessels, and flown upward of 9,000 combat flights since the war began on February 28. A human rights organization reported that more than 3,200 people have been killed in Iran since the start of the conflict, including at least 214 children, while 15 Israelis and 13 American service members have also lost their lives.^5,6,7

Senate Confirms Markwayne Mullin as Homeland Security Secretary on 54-45 Vote

The Senate voted 54-45 on Monday evening to confirm Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem, who was fired by President Trump earlier this month following bipartisan criticism of her leadership. Two Democrats, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, crossed party lines to vote in favor of Mullin, while Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against him. During his confirmation hearing, Mullin pledged to take a different approach than Noem, saying he would require ICE agents to obtain judicial warrants before entering private homes and that he viewed the agency as more of a “transport” operation than a frontline enforcement body. The White House indicated that further DHS funding negotiations would not resume until Mullin is officially in place, leaving the department’s ongoing shutdown unresolved for the time being.^8,9,10

ICE Agents Report to 14 Airports on Day One, but Their Role Remains Unclear

Between 100 and 150 ICE agents deployed to 14 airports across the country on Monday as the Trump administration attempted to address growing travel chaos caused by the DHS shutdown. At several locations, the agents were seen walking through terminal areas and standing near security checkpoints, but they are not trained to operate screening equipment and their specific duties varied from airport to airport. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the agents at O’Hare International Airport were limited to overseeing security lines, monitoring exit lanes, and making announcements such as reminding passengers to remove liquids from their bags. Senator Cory Booker held a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport criticizing the deployment as a political gesture rather than a real solution. TSA absences reached a record 11.76 percent on Sunday, with more than 400 officers having resigned since the shutdown began and thousands more calling in sick after working without pay for over five weeks.^11,12,13

Senators Signal Possible DHS Breakthrough Monday Night, but Trump Complicates Talks With Voter ID Demand

In a late-night development, senators from both parties said Monday evening that they were closing in on a deal to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security except for the arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that carries out arrests and deportations. Senator Katie Britt, the Alabama Republican who chairs the DHS funding panel, said a White House meeting with Trump “went really well” and that lawmakers had found a solution, though she declined to share specifics. Under the framework being discussed, ICE’s investigative division, Homeland Security Investigations, would be funded separately with guardrails to prevent those agents from being reassigned to deportation duties. However, earlier in the day, Trump had rejected a similar approach and instead insisted that any DHS deal must include passage of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill that would require proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that linking the two was not realistic. If Congress does not reach an agreement by March 27 and leaves for its scheduled two-week recess, TSA officers will have missed more than a month of paychecks, and the shutdown could reach day 60 by the time lawmakers return on April 13.^14,15,16,17

Supreme Court Appears Likely to Restrict Late-Arriving Mail-In Ballots Ahead of 2026 Midterms

The Supreme Court heard more than two hours of oral arguments Monday in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case that could determine whether mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day or simply postmarked by that date. Based on the questioning, the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of Mississippi’s law allowing a five-day grace period for mail ballots to arrive after Election Day, suggesting they may side with the Republican National Committee’s argument that federal law requires all ballots to be in hand on Election Day itself. A ruling against the grace periods could affect voting procedures in at least 14 states, including California, New York, and Texas, where similar laws are currently on the books. Election law experts said this would be one of the most significant voting rights decisions in years, with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans cast their ballots in the November midterms. A decision is expected by the end of the court’s current term in late June or early July.^18,19,20

Trump Has Approved 89 Percent of Disaster Aid Requests From Red States but Only 23 Percent From Blue States

A Politico analysis published Monday found that President Trump has approved disaster aid at vastly different rates depending on the political makeup of the requesting state. According to the review of federal records, Trump has granted 89 percent of disaster assistance requests from states with Republican leadership but only 23 percent of those from states led by Democrats. Every president from George W. Bush through Joe Biden had approved every request for public assistance when FEMA determined the costs exceeded its threshold for a given state, making Trump’s pattern of denials historically unusual. Since April, Trump has denied nine requests that met FEMA’s damage threshold, six of which came from states with Democratic governors and two Democratic senators. States including California, Illinois, Minnesota, and Colorado have been excluded from billions of dollars in long-delayed FEMA funds, sparking accusations from lawmakers in both parties that the administration is politicizing emergency aid.^21,22

Markets Swing Wildly as Investors React to Shifting Iran Signals

Financial markets experienced dramatic swings on Monday as investors tried to make sense of the conflicting signals coming out of Washington and Tehran. After Trump announced the five-day postponement of his Hormuz ultimatum, Brent crude plunged 10.9 percent to settle at $99.94 per barrel, its largest single-day decline since the war began. U.S. stocks rallied sharply in response, with major indices posting their best day in weeks. However, by early Tuesday morning, oil prices had already climbed back above $102 per barrel after Iran denied that any talks were taking place and reports emerged of fresh attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure. China took the unusual step of imposing temporary price controls on gasoline and diesel to shield its domestic market from the global oil surge. Analysts cautioned that the volatility is likely to continue as long as the diplomatic picture remains uncertain and fighting continues in the region.^23,24,25

State Level

Stephen Miller Pushes Texas Lawmakers to End Public Education Funding for Undocumented Children

Stephen Miller, President Trump’s top immigration adviser, raised the idea of ending public education funding for undocumented children during a closed-door meeting with Texas lawmakers in Washington last week, according to two people who were present. Miller asked why the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature had not passed a bill that would fund public schools only for children who are citizens or “lawfully present in the United States,” a move that would directly challenge the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which requires states to educate all children regardless of immigration status. Tom Oliverson, chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus, said Miller encouraged state lawmakers to act on conservative priorities that have been difficult to advance in Congress, particularly as Republicans brace for the possibility of losing control of the U.S. House after the November midterms. Governor Greg Abbott has previously expressed support for challenging the Plyler precedent. If Texas moved forward, the policy could affect more than 100,000 students in a state with over 5.5 million schoolchildren and could set a precedent for other Republican-led states with large immigrant communities.^26,27

Kansas’s Failed Proof-of-Citizenship Voting Law Offers a Warning as Congress Debates the SAVE Act

As President Trump insists that Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, the experience of Kansas offers a cautionary example of what such a law might produce. In 2013, Kansas enacted a nearly identical measure called the Secure and Fair Elections Act, or SAFE Act, requiring voters to present a passport, birth certificate, or similar document when registering. A federal judge struck the law down in 2018 after finding it had blocked approximately 31,000 eligible voters from registering, roughly 12 percent of all first-time registration attempts, while catching fewer than 30 noncitizens trying to do the same. Legal experts who have studied the Kansas experience said the proposed federal version is even stricter and would likely have a greater impact on eligible American citizens, with costs spreading across thousands of local election offices nationwide. Even Kansas’s own Republican secretary of state, Scott Schwab, told the Associated Press in 2024 that the federal government should avoid replicating the state’s approach, saying, “It didn’t work out so well.”^28,29

National Veterans Group Backs Democrat Josh Turek With $825,000 Ad Buy in Iowa Senate Primary

VoteVets, a national Democratic organization that typically backs military veterans, announced it would spend $825,000 this week on a television and streaming ad campaign supporting Josh Turek in Iowa’s Democratic Senate primary. Turek, a state legislator and former Paralympic gold medalist in wheelchair basketball, was born with spina bifida after his father was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. The investment is the first outside spending in the race and amounts to more than double the roughly $400,000 Turek’s own campaign had at the start of 2026. His chief rival, state Senator Zach Wahls, had $733,480 on hand at the end of 2025 and has been endorsed by Senator Elizabeth Warren. The primary is scheduled for June 2. Iowa’s Senate seat is open after Republican Senator Joni Ernst announced she would not seek re-election, and Democrats are hoping the race could become competitive if the political environment continues to deteriorate for Republicans heading into November.³⁰

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