Speaker Mike Johnson isn't racking up any style points, but wins are wins.

• The Homeland Security shutdown ended with a whimper and a House voice vote.
• FISA got a 45-day extension, this time via unanimous consent.
• And the farm bill hasn't blown up yet, despite an early rebellion by farm-state lawmakers.

🛟 Why it matters: Johnson has shown a willingness to abandon his initial positions and accept outside help.

• 🤬 This time it came at a cost: His relationship with Senate Majority Leader John Thune showed real strain after a month of cross-chamber friction.
• Johnson and Thune had pointed exchanges this week — a notable shift from their previously smooth dynamic.

🛋️ Zoom in: Johnson acted as an amateur therapist for his disgruntled rank-and-file members.

• "I'm doing a lot of therapy sessions tonight," he said last night at a Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America gala.
• "The speaker has a lot of patience," Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who had yelled at Johnson about the back and forth on the farm bill, told us.
• "There's just a lot of feelings here," Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) told us of his colleagues. "Everyone wants it to be their idea and their way."

🪏 The big picture: Johnson has built a track record in this zero-margin era of getting his way out of positions that look unfixable.

• Ukraine (April 2024): Relied on Democrats to help advance a $95 billion foreign aid package over GOP opposition. Defeated a motion to vacate his speakership that followed.
• Spending (December 2024): Cut a bipartisan deal to avoid a shutdown after Trump's reelection. Won January's speaker election with ease despite threats to his gavel.
• "One big, beautiful bill"/crypto (July 2025): Broke the record for longest vote (7-plus hours) while negotiating with the House Freedom Caucus. Broke it again two weeks later during a GENIUS Act floor fight, while trying to sway GOP holdouts.

🤗 The bottom line: They aren't clean wins. But he's still here.

— Justin Green, Kate Santaliz and Hans Nichols

Senate Republicans are calling on the Trump administration to clarify how it is interpreting the 60-day clock under the War Powers Act in its military campaign against Iran.

⏰ Why it matters: The 60-day deadline, depending on who's counting, appears to have arrived on requiring the president to seek congressional authorization or wind down operations. The first strikes against Iran were on Feb. 28.

• But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a different view during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggesting the clock can "pause or stop" during a ceasefire.

👂 Zoom in: Republicans, including some who have flirted with supporting a war powers resolution, appeared open to Hegseth's interpretation.

• "It sounds like there's some wiggle room he provided there for himself," Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told reporters. "We'll take a look at whatever they send over."
• "Presumably, they will communicate that in a formal way," Young added. "They have, in a very careful way, followed the War Powers Act so far."
• "I imagine the administration will send us some sort of formal notification saying, 'Here's where we think we are under the War Powers,'" Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. "Either we want 30 more days, or we don't think we need additional time because of X, Y, Z."

👎 The other side: Democrats sharply rejected Hegseth's argument.

• "A ceasefire means bombs aren't dropping," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. "It doesn't mean there are no hostilities. If we're using the U.S. military to blockade everything going into and out of Iran, that's still hostility."
• "That answer showed they know they've got a 60-day problem, and they're trying to come up with a rationale to get around it."

⚡️ The intrigue: The Iran 60-day debate has echoes of a clash between Congress and the White House during the Libya conflict in 2011.

• As the 60-day deadline approached, then-President Obama argued that U.S. involvement — providing intelligence and refueling allied aircraft — did not rise to the level of "hostilities" under the War Powers Act.
• Republicans howled.
• "We're part of an effort to drop bombs on [Moammar Gadhafi's] compounds," then-Speaker John Boehner told the New York Times. "It just doesn't pass the straight-face test, in my view, that we're not in the midst of hostilities."

😎 The bottom line: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the committee chair, said he has "not been too concerned" about the 60-day deadline.

— Hans Nichols