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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
Denmark Votes in Snap Election
Denmark held a snap election on Tuesday for 179 seats to the country’s unicameral legislature, the Folketing, that ended with an inconclusive vote and leaves a prospective third term for Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in limbo, dependent on her building a new ruling coalition with moderates. Frederiksen’s center-left Social Democrats won a plurality of seats with 38, and her broader left-wing coalitional “red bloc” (rød blok) collectively won 84 seats, shy of the 90 needed for a majority. Meanwhile, the right-wing “blue bloc” (blå blok) won 77 total seats, while the centrist Moderates—led by Frederiksen’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen—scooped up 14. All Danish parliamentary members are elected to serve four-year terms. Rasmussen’s Moderates will now have the opportunity to make deals with either bloc to form a ruling coalition.
- Following the results, Rasmussen urged leaders on both the left and right to “come and play with us,” while also stressing the need for unity amid the wars in Iran and Ukraine: “We must not be divided.”
- Frederiksen called elections late last month, hoping to capitalize on the pressures caused by President Donald Trump’s overtures to acquire or conquer Greenland. She was not required to do so until November 1.
DOJ Prosecutor Tells Judge It Doesn’t Have Evidence Against Powell
A transcript of court proceedings shows that earlier this month, a federal prosecutor told a judge that the Justice Department lacked evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the case against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the renovations to the central bank’s headquarters. The interaction came at a March 3 hearing reviewing Justice Department subpoenas, which Judge James Boasberg blocked on March 11. George A. Massucco-LaTaif—the prosecutor who serves as a top deputy to U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro—told a federal judge at the hearing that while the Justice Department officials on the case “do not know at this time” what evidence shows that Powell committed fraud or any other crime, but pointed to his claim that the renovation project was $1.2 billion over budget, which “doesn’t seem right.” Massucco-LaTaif said, “There are 1.2 billion reasons for us to look into it.” To learn more about the federal inquiry into Powell, read the January 14 issue of TMD.
- The Justice Department has been investigating whether Powell lied under oath when discussing details of the renovation at a congressional hearing, but Massucco-LaTaif conceded “we don’t know” whether Powell lied in his testimony, but added, “There are certain areas that he addressed that caused concern.”
- Massucco-LaTaif also rebuffed a request from the judge for the Justice Department to present evidence it had gathered in the investigation to him under seal, stating, “You don’t need this grand suspicion of illegal activity” for the subpoenas to stand. Rather, he said, “It can be something as simple as a tip or a rumor or something that just doesn’t seem right.”
Iranian Negotiations Ambiguity
Trump claimed Monday that U.S. and Iranian officials had found “major points of agreement,” including Iran committing to never becoming a nuclear-armed nation—but whether there are, or will be, negotiations between the White House and the Iranian regime is still ambiguous. The Guardian reported that the Iranian regime would refuse to meet in person with White House special envoy Steve Witkoff or Trump’s son-in-law and foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tweeted Tuesday that his country is ready to “facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks” between Iran and the U.S., and Bloomberg reported that Trump had spoken with Pakistani army chief Asim Munir on Monday. Pakistani sources told The Guardian on Tuesday that U.S. and Iran could meet in the Pakistani capital city of Islamabad as early as this week, with Vice President J.D. Vance being considered as a potential lead negotiator for the U.S. But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the situation “fluid,” saying, “speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.” On Tuesday, outlets reported that the Trump administration is sending about 2,000 U.S. paratroopers to the Middle East, joining the roughly 5,000 Marines of the 11th and 31st Marine Expeditionary Units heading toward the region.
- U.S. officials told the New York Times that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been pushing Trump to continue military operations against Iran until its regime is destroyed, due to the rare “historic opportunity” the war presents to bring change to the Middle East.
- On Tuesday, Iran named a retired commander of the regime’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, to serve as Iran’s new security chief. Zolghadr replaces Ali Larijani, who was killed in an Israeli air strike last week.
- Bloomberg reported Iran is charging commercial ships fees of up to $2 million per trip across the Strait of Hormuz, with some vessels accepting the offer. To learn more about the situation in the strait, read yesterday’s TMD.
Taliban Releases U.S. Citizen
Taliban officials on Tuesday released American Dennis Coyle—a 64-year-old language researcher who has been detained in Afghanistan since January 2025, yet never charged with a crime—after his family wrote a letter to Afghan Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, requesting a pardon in honor of the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. According to his family’s website, Coyle had been forced to live “in near-solitary conditions” since his arrest. The former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, arrived in Kabul for Coyle’s release, after which he was placed on a flight to the United Arab Emirates. Qatar also played a role in facilitating Coyle’s release. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a state sponsor of wrongful detention, calling for the immediate release of Coyle and others “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan.
- Rubio described Coyle’s release as a “positive step,” but emphasized that the Taliban must release other Americans they have detained.
- The Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed that Coyle had been released “after going through the judicial process as a result of violating the laws,” stating that the Taliban government “has not arrested citizens of any country to achieve political goals.”
DHS Funding Negotiations Stall
Senate Republicans have a framework to fund non-immigration-enforcement agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ending the department’s shutdown, but the proposal faces resistance from multiple directions. The proposed framework would split out $5.5 billion in leftover ICE funding and would not include any additional restrictions to immigration enforcement operations, such as banning agents’ use of face masks, barring them from conducting “roving patrols,” or requiring that judicial warrants be obtained for every immigration-related arrest. A White House official told Politico that the emerging plan “seems to be an acceptable solution,” but Trump maintains that he will sign no legislation, including a bill to end the partial shutdown, until he receives a version of the elections security bill, the SAVE America Act. House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Republicans were “very resistant” to breaking up ICE funding. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly told reporters, “Negotiations are ongoing, and they’ve sent us an offer, and we’ll be sending them an offer back.” Schumer added, “And I can assure you it’ll contain significant reform in it.” To learn more about the SAVE America Act and its chances at becoming law, read the full piece in today’s TMD.
- Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, chairman of the House Budget Committee, told Axios on Tuesday that he is in informal talks with GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Senate Budget Committee chairman, to move forward with a reconciliation bill to pass supplemental military funding for the Defense Department amid the war in Iran, and, potentially, money for DHS.
- Funding for DHS expired on February 14.
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The Trouble With SAVE America
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued a warning: he would not sign any other bills into law until Republicans’ election integrity bill, the SAVE America Act, reached his desk. He doubled down on Sunday, urging Republicans not to make “any deal” with Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end the partial government shutdown unless it includes an agreement to pass the legislation.
I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass “THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.
But, for all Trump’s insistence that the congressional GOP find a way to pass the legislation, Senate Republicans have been less willing to wage a procedural fight to pass it. Despite Trump’s call not to make a deal to fund DHS, Senate Republicans have continued to work on a deal with Democrats to reopen the department—and the SAVE America Act is unlikely to pass the Senate.
Trump’s demand has turned a stalled election bill into a test of Republican unity—and a potential threat to the Senate filibuster. But what does the SAVE America Act actually do? And can Republicans find a path to pass it?
The SAVE America Act updates and expands the 2024 SAVE Act, which passed the House in July of that year but was never brought to a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate. A revised version passed the House again in April 2025 but once more stalled in the upper chamber. Much like its predecessor, the bill would introduce stricter requirements for voter registration and identification.
The Senate is considering the bill, and some senators have proposed amendments that would restrict mail-in voting, prohibit sex-change surgeries for minors, and stop recipients of federal funds from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports. The version that House of Representatives passed last month would establish a new voter ID requirement at the polls and separately require people registering to vote to provide documentary proof of citizenship in person—such as a passport or birth certificate showing the person was born or naturalized in the United States. It would also force states to submit their lists of eligible voters to DHS to ensure that they do not contain noncitizens.
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Given the bill’s right-wing priorities, it has little chance of attracting the Democratic votes it needs to pass the threshold to break a filibuster. This is the requirement in the Senate for 60 votes to end debate on legislation—known as invoking cloture—even though passing a bill only requires a bare majority.
Republican supporters of the legislation insist that they have found ways around the Senate rule. Notably, the current framework for a deal to end the DHS shutdown includes the potential passage of elements of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process; but reconciliation is reserved for fiscal policy, and it’s unclear how Republicans would be able to do that here as SAVE America doesn’t involve taxation and spending (which the Byrd Rule, a provision of federal law, requires of reconciliation bills).
One strategy some Republicans have advocated to pass the SAVE America Act is simply lowering the cloture threshold. Trump has long been a proponent of this approach, repeating Sunday that senators should “Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act. He has argued for months that Democrats—who tried and failed to make a carve-out to the filibuster during the early days of the Biden administration—will kill the procedure the next time they take power.
Some Republican lawmakers seem to agree. “The split in the Republican conference right now is, do you believe Democrats will end it when they get the chance to do it, or not?” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told reporters. “I happen to be in the camp believing what Democrats tell us … so we ought to beat them to the punch.”
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who defended the filibuster when Democrats tried to create a carve-out and is in a primary runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for his seat, cited his belief that Democrats will eventually end the precedent as he announced his change of heart. In an op-ed in the New York Post, he gave his support to “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act and funding for DHS. “Process matters, but outcomes matter more,” he wrote. “The Democrats’ assault on election integrity and national security must be stopped.”
The only two Democratic senators who voted against the carve-out—Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—have since left the upper chamber. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is widely expected to have a major leadership role the next time Democrats hold the Senate, was noncommittal about what a future Democratic Senate would do to the filibuster when The Dispatch asked him about it late last year.
But there are enough Senate Republicans who are in favor of the filibuster to keep it intact, for the moment. “I want to be recorded in the pages of history [as] defending the institution,” Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told TMD. “I want the Democrats to own this if it ultimately has to happen.”
Another course some hardline senators and members of the Republican base have called for is a “talking filibuster”—forcing Democrats to hold the floor and speak against the bill until they can’t anymore. This strategy wouldn’t require a rule change, but whether it is procedurally sound is unclear.
The theory, as the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Rachel Bovard has argued, rests on Senate rules limiting each senator to two speeches on a given question. Democrats could speak at length, but they couldn’t sustain the filibuster forever—after all, they’ll have to use the bathroom sometime. Once every Democrat has spoken twice, the Senate could move to final passage and approve the SAVE America Act with 51 votes.
But GOP senators do not all agree with this interpretation of Senate rules.
“If they bring up amendments, if they bring a procedural, it resets the two-speech rule,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma told TMD. “And so, it’s not just: two speeches, everybody speaks twice, and then it’s over. It could be an infinite number of two speeches.”
The strategy Republicans have come closest to pursuing would simply exhaust Democrats through extended debate until enough cross the aisle and vote for cloture. At a press conference last week, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah argued for repurposing the process used to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Senate debated that legislation for 60 working days until it finally reached the requisite number of votes to invoke cloture, which at the time was 67. “The members who had been opposing it for that long got worn down—not just physically exhausted, but they also became tired of opposing a bill that was getting more popular as people saw more about it and as they saw that the arguments against the bill weren’t working and weren’t good,” Lee said.
Republican senators voted to open debate on SAVE America last week, and the Senate has been considering it since then. But it is unlikely that leadership will undertake the campaign that Lee has called for. There are several other pieces of legislation that the Senate will need to tackle in the near future, including DHS funding, FISA reauthorization, supplemental funding for the war with Iran, and perhaps a second reconciliation bill. Monday night’s confirmation of Sen. Markwayne Mullin as DHS secretary already interrupted consideration of the election bill.
Trump has said the bill would mean that Democrats “probably won’t win an election for 50 years,” and Lee has warned that Republicans could lose power “likely for a long time” without it. But the concern it is said to address—noncitizen voting—is exceptionally rare.
States have conducted reviews of their voter rolls and found confirmed cases of noncitizens casting ballots in the single digits. Data from a federal citizenship verification program show that just 0.04 percent of voter verification cases flagged noncitizens, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. And though other types of voter fraud occur, none are at the scale that could swing an election.
The extra burdens that the bill would place on people to prove their citizenship could backfire on Republicans. As Dispatch contributor Stephen Richer points out in his piece for the website today, the easiest way people can prove their citizenship is with a passport, but not all Americans have passports, and many Republican voters today, namely the less educated and less affluent, are less likely to have them.
“This is interesting as to who has these documents, but the notion that this is going to be the magic bullet for either party is, I think, much overblown,” Richer told TMD.
Today’s Must-Read
President Donald Trump has called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act—which requires voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote—“his No. 1 priority.” And though the bill passed the House in February, it is currently in flux in the Senate with a handful of Republicans holding out support. Dispatch contributing writer and former recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona Stephen Richer draws on his years of election experience to debunk some popular misconceptions about the bill—namely that additional identification requirements would yield a Republican electoral advantage.
In Other News
- The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Noem v. Al Otro Lado, during which a majority of justices appeared inclined to rule that a Trump administration policy to turn back asylum seekers before they reach the U.S. did not violate federal law. To learn more, read Amy Howe’s coverage at SCOTUSblog.
- Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as Homeland Security Secretary. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma appointed Alan Armstrong, the chairman of energy company Williams Companies, to fill Mullin’s former seat in the Senate.
- The Federal Communications Commission moved to ban imports of new routers made outside the U.S., claiming they pose supply chain risks and security threats.
- House Republicans announced a congressional probe into alleged hospice fraud in California, with the GOP-majority House Oversight Committee requesting state documents from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
- Democrat Emily Gregory won a special election in Florida to fill a state House seat covering the Palm Beach area, including Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
- Minnesota state law enforcement officials filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking access to evidence related to three separate shootings—including the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—by federal immigration enforcement agents.
- The European Union and Australia announced a new free trade pact to strengthen cooperation on critical minerals and defense.
- Saudi Arabia opened a new trade route to the United Arab Emirates that stretches over land and water.
- Ireland announced a support package worth 250 million euros ($290 million), aimed at relieving the impact of rising fuel and energy prices, driven by the Iran war.
- Police in Hong Kong arrested a bookstore owner and three employees for allegedly selling what authorities described as “seditious” material, including a biography of jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.
- German officials arrested two people—a Romanian and a Ukrainian national—for allegedly spying on behalf of Russia, including gathering information regarding Ukrainian drone suppliers.
- Russia launched a daytime drone and missile attack on Ukraine, killing three people across the country and striking the western city of Lviv. Ukrainian officials said that the city’s 17th-century St. Andrew’s Church was hit during the attack. Five others were killed in an earlier overnight attack.
- A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding the company willfully misled consumers about platform safety and failed to protect children from sexual predators.
- OpenAI announced it is shutting down its AI video generator Sora—along with all the company’s video generation AI models—just six months after its launch. This also cancels a $1 billion deal with Disney.
- Epic Games Inc., developer of the video game Fortnite, announced it will lay off more than 1,000 employees.
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the agency had scrapped plans to send a new space station into the moon’s orbit, and will instead pivot to a $20 billion project to build a fixed lunar base.
- Gap announced a partnership with Google, allowing consumers to buy its clothes directly through the company’s Gemini chatbot.
- FedEx partnered with the last-mile transportation service OneRail to offer same-day delivery services.
- “Insider Trading Takes Washington” (The Free Press)
- Shawn Regan on the costs of California’s proposed wealth tax. (City Journal)
- Milan Singh on why pursuing voter ID requirements is worthwhile despite flaws in the SAVE Act. (The Argument)
- Ken Rosenthal explores how playing the piano has helped 41-year-old baseball pitcher Max Scherzer solve a sports-inflicted thumb injury. (The Athletic)
- Blair Braverman reflects on her dog sledding trek through the wilderness. (New York Times)
- Kevin Kelly provides 30 questions that will help “elevate your awareness of the greater place in which you live.” (Substack)
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