The President speaks at the FII Priority Summit in Miami while DHS workers go a 41st day without pay.

Hon. Friday afternoon. Miami. The FII Priority Summit, which is the American front of the Future Investment Initiative, the Saudi-Arabia-backed investment conference that travels. The President of the United States takes the stage in the ballroom of a Brickell hotel. Talks for forty-five minutes.

In the forty-five minutes, hon, the President of the United States credits himself with the TikTok deal, says he is thinking about taking over Cuba, says the Iran war is almost over, says NATO has to pay, says the economy is the best ever, says the border is closed, and does not address the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, which by Friday afternoon is in its forty-first day and is the longest shutdown of any federal agency in American history.

Hon. Forty-one days. The workforce of DHS, hon, is two hundred and sixty thousand people. They have not been paid for forty-one days. They are the people who check your boarding pass, patrol your border, respond to natural disasters, protect federal buildings, and enforce immigration law. They are not the staff of the Republican Senate caucus. They are not the staff of the House majority leadership. They are the workers. And they have not been paid for forty-one days.

The President, on stage, in the ballroom, in Miami, on Friday, did not mention them. He did, however, mention Cuba.

Cuba, hon, is the country he floated taking over, on the South Lawn, on a previous Friday, in February. The administration has not, in the intervening month, abandoned the taking-over Cuba idea. The taking-over Cuba idea, hon, has graduated from a South Lawn remark to an FII Summit talking point. That is, hon, upward mobility for an idea that began as a clear-the-helicopter line.

He also, hon, credited himself with the TikTok deal. The TikTok deal, on the factual record, was signed in January, with substantial bipartisan involvement in the House and Senate. The deal, on the facts, was not the President’s solo achievement. The deal, on the facts, involved significant work by negotiators who do not get speaking time at the FII Priority Summit. The FII Priority Summit, however, is not the venue for the negotiators. The FII Priority Summit is the venue for the guy who signs the photo op.

The Press Secretary, on the same Friday afternoon, issued a statement that the President had instructed DHS to immediately pay TSA officers, effective Monday. The statement, hon, was on the wire by 4 p.m. The statement, hon, did not address the funding for DHS, which is Congress’s job, not the President’s. The President cannot, hon, by executive order, fund the Department. The President can, in technical practice, direct DHS to spend money it does not have, which is what the statement implies. That, hon, is the kind of thing that generates a quick Antideficiency Act inquiry and a quick GAO referral. The legality of the Friday statement will, by the standard of these things, be contested in court by April.

You ever notice how the people who say they are running the government like a business keep issuing instructions that no business could operationalize?

The Saudi sovereign-wealth-fund delegation, hon, in the front row, applauded. They applauded, hon, because the speech was on their schedule and the applause is what is in the contract. You ever read the contract for the FII Priority Summit? I have not. I bet, hon, the applause is in the contract.

Funny how that works.