The Daily Brief - Mar. 24, 2026
The latest on Iran, DHS funding, and more
These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Read below to catch up on all the news you might’ve missed.
Iran
One day after President Trump claimed he’d had “very good and productive” talks with Iran, Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel and several Persian Gulf states. Israel responded with strikes on Iran and Lebanon.
The US, Israel, and Iran continue to send conflicting signals on negotiations to end the war. Trump reposted Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer to mediate talks between the two sides, and administration officials have said they are also considering Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as a potential partner to lead negotiations. However, Israeli officials said Monday a deal “does not appear to be tangible right now,” and Iran has denied holding any direct or indirect talks with Washington.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is quietly preparing for the possibility of deploying a combat brigade from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division — roughly 3,000 soldiers — to support US military operations in Iran, according to defense officials. Unnamed officials said the forces could be used to seize Kharg Island, which handles the vast majority of Iran’s oil exports. However, another official told Politico that Trump does not want to hit the island because he is interested in the oil.
SCOTUS Asylum Case
A majority of the Supreme Court’s justices on Tuesday appeared open to allowing the Trump administration to turn away some asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, a policy that would strip migrants of the legal right to apply for asylum that federal law guarantees to anyone who “arrives in the United States.”
The case, Noem v. Al Otro Lado, turns on a single question: does a migrant have to fully cross the border to trigger that right, or does simply appearing at a port of entry and requesting entry count as “arriving”?
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that “arrives in” means a person who has fully crossed — the position the Trump administration is arguing. Justice Brett Kavanaugh called the debate over exact border location “very artificial,” noting the government would simply push migrants farther back regardless of where the court drew the line.
The court’s liberal justices disagreed. “They’ve arrived. They are knocking at the door,” Justice Sotomayor said, arguing the policy violates both congressional intent and international refugee agreements dating to World War II.
The policy, called “metering,” limits the daily number of asylum seekers at the US ports of entry. It was first used under President Obama in 2016, expanded by Trump in his first term, and rescinded by Biden in 2021. A decision from the Court is expected by late June or early July.
Airport Lines
Travelers at several major US airports are waiting as long as four to six hours for security screening as TSA officers continue to call out from work. The agency’s entire workforce of nearly 50,000 TSA agents has been working without pay since Feb. 14, when funding for DHS lapsed because of a congressional standoff over immigration enforcement.
Travelers at Houston’s Bush International and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airports have been told to budget four hours or more for domestic and international screening. Some airports are faring better: San Francisco International and Kansas City International use private security contractors and have avoided the worst of the delays.
The Trump administration has deployed ICE agents to 14 airports, saying they will help manage the flow of passengers. Unlike TSA officers, ICE agents are funded through a separate allocation and have continued to be paid through the shutdown.
Newsbreak
In authoritarian countries, critical examination of those nations’ history and traditions is discouraged if not an outright danger to those who do it. And it is no accident that local and global institutions of education have become a battleground, where learning and efforts to upend a hierarchical status quo can be put to end by coercion and threats of violence. Democracies entrust schools and universities to preserve a common memory of positive change, generated by protests, social movements, and rebellions. The authoritarian right must erase this history, and, along with it, the very practice of critical inquiry that has so often been the engine of future progress.
In Erasing History, Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the authoritarian right’s attacks on education, identifies their key tactics and funders, and traces their intellectual roots.
DHS Shutdown
Senate Republican leaders said they have finalized a plan to fund DHS after talks with President Trump Monday night. The proposal would fund all of DHS except specific portions of ICE, which was already funded under last year’s GOP megabill. A White House official said Tuesday that the not-yet-finalized agreement “seems to be an acceptable solution” to the administration.
So far, Democrats have not said whether they would agree to the deal. “I have not seen the language, and I don’t agree to anything till I see the language,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans will pursue immigration enforcement funding separately, through a budget reconciliation bill requiring only a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster.
According to two sources, President Trump has agreed to drop his demand to pass the SAVE Act before signing any funding for DHS, as long as some of the provisions of the SAVE Act are included in the budget reconciliation bill Republicans intend to push through.
Mullin Sworn In
President Trump swore in Markwayne Mullin as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at a Capitol ceremony today. He was confirmed by the Senate yesterday in a 54-45 vote.
Two Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico — voted with most Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who clashed openly with Mullin during his confirmation hearing, was the only Republican to vote no.
Mullin, a former Oklahoma senator, replaces Kristi Noem, who was fired by Trump in the wake of multiple controversies related to immigration enforcement, including the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents during an ICE enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt tapped oil executive Alan Armstrong, executive chair of Williams Companies, to fill Mullin’s Senate seat. Stitt called Armstrong a “strong business leader” who values “free markets and limited government.” Oklahoma is among the states where the governor makes the temporary replacement to fill the vacancy. The appointment is valid until the next general election. If the appointment is made in an odd-numbered year, a special election needs to be held.
Bill Cosby Verdict
A California jury ordered Bill Cosby to pay more than $59 million to Donna Motsinger, an 84-year-old woman who said he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1972 when she was working as a waitress.
Jurors found Cosby, 88, liable for the sexual assault of an intoxicated woman and sexual battery, awarding Motsinger $19.25 million for her pain and suffering and $40 million in punitive damages.
In the lawsuit, Motsinger said that Cosby invited her to his comedy show, offered her wine in a limousine, and that she began feeling sick after drinking it in his dressing room. She later awoke in her own home with her clothes removed. The lawsuit was made possible by a 2022 California law temporarily suspending the statute of limitations for certain sexual assault claims.
“I have carried the weight of what happened to me for more than 50 years,” Motsinger said in a statement. Cosby’s attorney said he would appeal.
DOGE Depositions
A federal judge has ordered the release of deposition videos of two former DOGE staffers, ruling that public interest in their official conduct outweighs the risk of “embarrassment and reputational harm.”
District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York reversed an earlier order requiring the videos to be taken down after the Justice Department argued the staffers faced threats and negative publicity online. McMahon said the DOJ had not proven a “particularized harm” — and that the videos had already been shared hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, X, TikTok, and Instagram.
In the depositions, former staffers Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh defended DOGE’s decision to cut more than $100 million in humanities grants, acknowledging they used ChatGPT to identify grants to eliminate.
The videos were released as part of a civil lawsuit filed by nonprofits whose grants were canceled.