Recently, international news has been almost dominated by the situation in Iran and Trump's fluctuating attitude towards the direction of the war.

However, one event that once monopolized the front page headlines in 2025 is now rarely mentioned by mainstream media — on February 14, due to a deadlock between Democrats and Republicans over the Homeland Security Department (DHS) funding bill, a partial shutdown of DHS officially began.

As of today, the shutdown has not ended.

During this nearly two-month shutdown, more than 100,000 DHS employees have not been paid, and nearly 11% of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees are absent. In New Orleans, passengers waiting to go through security wound from inside the terminal to outside, even circling the parking lot seven times before reaching the entrance.

For the United States, which has almost no high-speed rail network and heavily relies on air travel, the turmoil in the civil aviation system is deadly. Even Elon Musk has publicly stated his willingness to pay the salaries of affected TSA employees out of his own pocket.

Similarly, starting in March, the prediction market Polymarket launched a weekly updated "Number of Delayed Flights in the US This Week" prediction event — traders can bet on how many flights will be delayed each week, and if their predictions are correct, they can earn money; if wrong, they lose everything.

Besides these purely entertaining events, Polymarket has also launched several topics of considerable reference value. Through the probabilities reflected by these topics, we can attempt to interpret the current true state of the government shutdown and even US domestic affairs.

The Stalemate Between the Two Parties

The duration of this shutdown has broken Trump's previous record of 35 days. In the face of widespread flight delays and a near paralysis of the security screening system, the question of when the shutdown will end is of utmost concern to those affected within the United States.

Currently on Polymarket, there is a related event: "The DHS shutdown will end on ___." As of this writing, the probability of the shutdown ending between April 5 and 8 is 44%, while the probability that the shutdown will not end in April is 14%.

Among those betting on these two timeframes, there are many "smart money" — experienced traders with a high historical prediction accuracy and strong performance in political sectors. Behind this trading profile lies a clear logic: if the shutdown does not end within the April 5 to 8 window, the likelihood of reaching an agreement within this month would drastically decrease.

The April 5 to 8 timeframe coincides with Congress resuming work after a recess, when both parties will again place the funding bill on the table. If an agreement can be reached within a few days of resuming work, and the bill is passed by both the House and Senate, the shutdown will come to an end.

However, if this window period is missed again, both chambers will fall into other agenda arrangements. Without strong political pressure, the motivation for both parties to return to the negotiating table will significantly diminish.

Musk's "Paying Up" and ICE's "Filling In"

Due to the ongoing resignations of TSA employees leading to severe delays at major airports, Musk posted on March 21 expressing his willingness to pay TSA personnel salaries, which led to the creation of the Polymarket trading event "Will Musk pay TSA employees' salaries?"

However, shortly after Musk's post, the White House declined the proposal on the grounds of legal compliance and conflict of interest: according to US federal law, government employees may not accept external compensation related to their official duties; moreover, Musk's deep involvement in federal government contracts presents a serious conflict of interest challenge to direct salary payments.

Although the reasons for refusal have legal basis, the public still needs to live. To minimize the impact of the aviation system's paralysis on the mid-term elections, Trump ordered on March 21 the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports to replace the TSA employees who left due to unpaid salaries.

However, the scene that unfolded after these ICE agents were stationed at the airports made the entire shutdown event look even more absurd.

Since Trump took office, ICE has been significantly compressing recruitment and training processes to achieve the goal of "arresting 3,000 people daily and deporting millions annually" — planning to hire an additional 10,000 enforcement officers while reducing the original 16-week physical training program to just 8 weeks.

In short, the professional qualifications of these ICE agents themselves are questionable.

The TSA's security screening work requires systematic training, covering core skills such as X-ray machine operation and explosive detection — ICE agents simply do not possess these qualifications.

As a result, a historic scene unfolded: TSA employees were not only unpaid while on duty, but also had to demonstrate the security screening processes to ICE agents and teach them how to maintain order. Meanwhile, most ICE agents did not actually implement security screening but merely patrolled the terminal, using their law enforcement identity to question and deport suspected illegal immigrants.

Data confirmed the outcome of this farce: after the ICE agents arrived at the airport, flight delays did not significantly improve. By the end of March, the US aviation system still saw thousands of flight delays daily, with nearly 40% absenteeism rate among TSA at Atlanta airport, and more than 350 flights delayed in a single day. These numbers indicate that these ICE agents, who were supposed to serve as a buffer during the shutdown, have not fulfilled any of the expectations.

The "Nuclear Option" to Break the Deadlock

Another trading event related to this government shutdown is "Will the Republicans use the 'nuclear option' to break obstruction before December 31, 2026?" The current probability stands at 31%.

At first glance, the term "nuclear option" seems quite intimidating; however, in American politics, it does not refer to nuclear weapons in a literal sense but is a rare yet highly destructive procedural card for the Republicans.

In the US legislative system, the House of Representatives is responsible for proposing and drafting funding bills, while the Senate is responsible for review and vote. Generally, the Senate requires 60 votes to end debate and move to voting — meaning that the minority party only needs to muster 41 votes to indefinitely delay any bill through an obstruction strategy.

The "nuclear option" provides a way to circumvent this threshold: a senator can raise a procedural appeal to overturn the presiding officer's ruling with a simple majority (51 votes), thus forcing the number of votes required to end the debate down from 60.

Currently, the Republican Party holds 53 seats in the Senate, and once the nuclear option is activated, the Democrats' ability to obstruct will be nearly non-existent.

However, the reason why the "nuclear option" is called "nuclear" is that it comes at a high cost to the user: undermining Senate rules is viewed by voters as an abuse of power; more critically, if the Republican Party loses its majority in the future, the same rules could be used by Democrats to counter.

The pit dug today may need to be filled by oneself in the future. The 31% probability is the market's true pricing of this dilemma.

As this shutdown stalemate remains unresolved, Trump is also facing the embarrassing situation of the escalating crisis in Iran.

On one hand, there is a high-pressure game of diplomacy and military actions; on the other hand, airport queues, unpaid wages, and the bickering between the two parties — the troubles this US government needs to coordinate simultaneously far exceed what the headlines present. Crises in domestic and foreign affairs never wait for one side to resolve first.

Amidst this turmoil, the rich political and current events prediction events in the prediction market will continue to serve as an objective mirror, helping us capture the true direction of these narratives.

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