Sen. John Fetterman told Fox News on Sunday what most of Washington already suspects: the Department of Homeland Security is headed for a partial shutdown by week's end. DHS funding expires Friday, and the two parties aren't close to a deal.

Fetterman, appearing on "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo, didn't mince words:

I absolutely would expect that it's going to shut down.

That's a Democratic senator conceding the obvious — his own party's leadership has drawn a line it has no intention of moving. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last week that another short-term funding patch for DHS was "off the table." Democrats laid out 10 demands on Wednesday for so-called guardrails on immigration enforcement, and Jeffries made clear Sunday he isn't accepting anything less than the full list.

The question isn't whether a shutdown is coming. It's who engineered it — and why.

The Democrats' gambit

According to Politico, Democrats published their list of 10 demands on Wednesday. Among the known items are requiring DHS officers to wear body cameras, requiring them to carry IDs, and prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks. That last point has become a key sticking point.

Here's what makes this a transparently political exercise. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem already announced last week that federal officers would wear body cameras in Minneapolis. Sen. Bill Hagerty confirmed Sunday on "Fox News Sunday" that the agency is ahead of the curve:

This isn't a serious negotiation.

Hagerty also noted that ICE was "ready to deal with the body cameras" on its own. So Democrats are demanding something that's already happening — and threatening to defund the Coast Guard, FEMA, and TSA to get it.

That's not a negotiating position. That's a hostage play dressed up as oversight.

Jeffries draws a line — through his own agencies

Jeffries went on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday and framed the standoff as Republicans' problem:

Either they're going to agree to dramatically reform the way in which ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are conducting themselves so that they're behaving like every other law enforcement agency in the country, or they're making the explicit decision to shut down the Coast Guard, shut down FEMA, and shut down TSA, and that would be very unfortunate.

Read that again carefully. Jeffries is the one refusing a funding extension. Jeffries is the one holding DHS hostage to a list of demands his counterparts haven't even been allowed to negotiate. And Jeffries is the one who admitted Sunday that he hadn't heard from the White House, Speaker Mike Johnson, or Senate Majority Leader John Thune — because, by multiple accounts, Democrats haven't returned the call.

Senate Majority Leader Thune said Thursday that serious negotiations had yet to begin. Sen. Katie Britt, who's leading the Republican talks, reached out to Democrats for a sit-down. She hadn't heard back.

So: Democrats issue demands, refuse to negotiate, reject a short-term extension, and then blame Republicans when the money runs out. It's a pattern so familiar it barely qualifies as news anymore.

Fetterman's awkward position

Fetterman, to his marginal credit, at least acknowledged the real-world consequences of the shutdown game. He pointed to TSA workers and others who would go unpaid:

I think every American deserves to be paid for the work that they've done, and I refuse — I don't want to jump back into that. I've been a Democrat that refused to shut our government down last year.

He also admitted something his leadership would rather he hadn't — that Democrats' 10 demands were quickly dismissed by Republicans as a Christmas wish list, and that he doesn't even know which of those demands his own party considers non-negotiable:

I truly don't know what specifically are the Democrats' red lines that it has to be, certainly not going to get all 10.

A Democratic senator publicly conceding he has no idea what his party's actual position is — days before a funding deadline — tells you everything about how serious this "negotiation" really is. Democrats aren't trying to reach a deal. They're trying to stage a confrontation over immigration enforcement and use a shutdown as the backdrop.

What this is actually about

The backdrop here is the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month by federal agents. That incident sparked outrage from Democrats and some Republicans and gave Jeffries the political oxygen to pivot from immigration enforcement itself — which remains broadly popular — to the conduct of enforcement officers.

It's a familiar move. When you can't win the policy argument, change the subject to the process. Body cameras and ID requirements sound reasonable in isolation — which is exactly why the administration was already moving on them. But Democrats aren't interested in the administration solving the problem quietly. They need the fight. They need the shutdown. They need the footage of unpaid TSA agents and closed Coast Guard stations so they can run the clip on cable news and blame Republicans.

Meanwhile, several Democratic senators have reportedly signaled a willingness to consider a short-term funding extension, which suggests the caucus isn't united and that leadership is dragging reluctant members into a confrontation some of them don't want.

Friday is coming

Lawmakers already kicked this can once with a two-week extension. That clock runs out on Friday. Jeffries says no more extensions. Fetterman says a shutdown is all but certain. Republicans say Democrats won't even come to the table.

If DHS goes dark at the end of the week, it won't be because Republicans refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It'll be because Democratic leadership decided that hamstringing immigration enforcement was worth more than keeping FEMA operational and TSA agents paid.

They'll call it a principled stand. TSA workers who are missing a paycheck will have another word for it.