Washington Roundup: Board of Peace holds inaugural meeting; DHS funding stalemate continues

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President Donald Trump chaired the inaugural meeting of his “Board of Peace” for Gaza Feb. 19, as a stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security continued.

The same week, pro-life lawmakers offered their support to Louisiana’s efforts to roll back the Biden administration’s eased restrictions on mifepristone, although the Trump administration’s Department of Justice sought to pause the lawsuit. 

— Trump chairs inaugural meeting of his ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza

At the meeting, Trump pledged $10 billion to the Board of Peace from the U.S., but it was not immediately clear where those funds would come from. 

“We will make Gaza very successful and safe and we are also going to maybe take it a step further, where we see hotspots around the world, we could probably do that very easily,” Trump said.

The same week, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said Feb. 17 that the Holy See would not join the board, citing “points that leave us somewhat perplexed.”

More than two dozen countries have accepted Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace, including Israel as well as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. However, like the Holy See, key U.S. allies in Europe have declined to join the board, with some expressing concern it would undercut the United Nations. Trump sought a $1 billion membership fee to become a member nation. 

The board was part of Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, which he announced in September, in which he said he would establish “a new international transitional body” headed and chaired by himself, “with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.”

— Stalemate over DHS funding continues 

In January, lawmakers ended a brief, partial government shutdown, agreeing to pass most outstanding appropriations bills but only a two-week extension for DHS to allow negotiations for new, stronger constraints on federal immigration officers after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minnesota in separate incidents.

Funding for DHS lapsed Feb. 13 when lawmakers left Washington without a resolution for a scheduled recess. However, negotiations remain stalled amid disagreement on what those new constraints would entail. 

Previously, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, issued a list of 10 items they want to include among new restrictions, such as prohibiting immigration enforcement agents from wearing masks to obscure their identity and requiring them to wear body cameras, as well as a prohibition on “funds from being used to conduct enforcement near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, child-care facilities, churches, polling places, courts, etc.”

But that proposal met Republican pushback, as did a subsequent counter-offer, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Feb. 18 press briefing, calling the counter-offer from Democrats “very unserious.” 

— Pro-life group, lawmakers target the Biden administration’s eased restrictions on mifepristone that remain in place 

A key national pro-life group took aim at the Biden administration‘s eased restrictions on mifepristone, a drug commonly, but not exclusively, used for most first trimester abortions, that remain in place under the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, 21 state attorneys general and 60 members of Congress were among the Republicans who filed amicus briefs in support of Louisiana’s efforts to roll back the regulation, despite filings from the U.S. Department of Justice under the Trump administration that sought to pause the case. 

The Biden administration regulation remaining in place under the Trump administration for over a year into the president’s second term has been met with criticism from pro-life leaders.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, has previously called on the Trump administration to safeguard the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion, and to reinstate stronger restrictions on mifepristone. She argued in comments to reporters on a Feb. 19 press call, “We have been warning the GOP and the administration for months” that “the failure to rein in abortion drugs risks base enthusiasm this November.” 

SBA released polling the same day it said showed that a potential failure by the Trump administration to act on pro-life policy priorities may demotivate Republican primary voters in the upcoming midterm elections. 

Also on Feb. 19, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill issued a statement thanking the members of Congress and her fellow state attorneys general who offered their support to the lawsuit, arguing they see the dangers of “politically driven Biden-era rules,” and that the FDA “should withdraw this rule now for the health and safety of women and the unborn.”

A DOJ spokesperson previously told OSV News that the department was “committed to advancing President Trump’s pro-life agenda” and “simply requested more time from the court for the FDA to complete its review.”

“As the Supreme Court recognized in a unanimous ruling less than two years ago, it is the role of the FDA — not the federal courts — to evaluate drug safety data and impose appropriate precautions,” the spokesperson said.

— Former Sen. Ben Sasse reflects on cancer diagnosis and faith 

In an interview with the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank associated with Stanford University, Sasse reflected on what he called an effort to “redeem the time” he has left following a terminal cancer diagnosis. 

“Redeem the time, in my theology, means it is a great blessing to be able to live a life of gratitude to God by doing stuff that tries to benefit your neighbor,” Sasse, who is Protestant, said.

Sasse said he was given 90 days to live in mid-December, but was accepted into an “aggressive” clinical trial. 

“The Bible is so rich and we spend so little time reading it together,” Sasse said of some of his reflections since his diagnosis. “Jesus weeps there, and he knows that he’s gonna raise Lazarus five minutes later. So it’s an amazing story because he’s acknowledging that death is terrible, and yet death doesn’t win.”

Reflecting on his time in the U.S. Senate, Sasse urged voters to elect people who “want a self-term limit” as a way to encourage change in Washington, such as the nation’s first president who he said wanted to “get back to Mount Vernon.” 

During his time as a Republican senator from Nebraska, Sasse was among the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who made strong objections to certain comments about now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic identity during her confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court. He was also notably among the seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump on an impeachment charge after ??the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol building, the day 2,000 supporters of then-President Donald Trump attempted to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.

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