Good morning. It is Thursday, May 21st, 2026, and this is your Morning Brief.

COHOST: Today feels less like one giant headline and more like a series of stress tests. Congress, the White House, the AI trade, school systems, and homebuyers are all getting asked whether the story underneath the headline is actually holding up.

HOST: We start in Washington, where one of the clearest signs of political strain this morning is not what Senate Republicans added to their immigration package, but what they now look ready to remove. Associated Press reports Republican leaders are expected to abandon a proposal for one billion dollars in security funding for the White House complex and President Trump's planned ballroom after pushback from their own members over timing, detail, and cost.

HOST: That matters because it tells you this bill is still unstable even before final text is out. The larger package is supposed to restore funding for ICE and the Border Patrol, and leadership still wants it passed before the Memorial Day recess. But when a White House-backed provision becomes a liability inside the president's own party, that is a sign the coalition is thinner than it looks from the outside.

COHOST: So this is not just about a ballroom. It is about whether Republicans can keep the core immigration bill from turning into a broader display of vote-count weakness.

HOST: Exactly. The fresh angle this morning is that the trimming is happening under pressure, not from Democrats, but from Republicans who do not want to defend that add-on while the party is also trying to sell border enforcement as the urgent priority. Watch whether leaders can narrow the bill cleanly, or whether more provisions get stripped and expose deeper disagreement before the week ends.

HOST: The second national story is also in Congress, but this one is about war powers. The House is expected to vote today on legislation that would compel Trump to withdraw from the war with Iran. That follows a Senate vote this week in which a small but meaningful number of Republicans crossed over to advance a similar resolution.

COHOST: That does not mean Trump is suddenly boxed in. But it does mean the argument has shifted from whether Congress will object at all to whether Republican discomfort is finally becoming visible enough to matter.

HOST: Right. The practical question here is not whether this House vote ends the conflict. It probably does not. The practical question is whether lawmakers are becoming less willing to let the White House describe the Iran war as basically managed while U.S. operations, oil risk, and legal questions are all still live. That is why this story remains important even on a morning without a major new battlefield turn. The pressure is now as much constitutional and political as it is military.

HOST: If you are looking for the immediate economic reason to keep watching Iran, it is still energy, yields, and inflation expectations. Markets got a break yesterday as oil prices fell and Treasury yields eased, but none of that becomes durable if Washington and Tehran slide back toward a sharper escalation cycle. So for today, the real watch item is whether the congressional challenge grows, and whether the White House changes its tone in response.

HOST: The biggest technology and markets story this morning is Nvidia, which once again delivered results strong enough to beat expectations and still somehow left investors asking for more. Reuters reports Nvidia forecast second-quarter revenue of about ninety-one billion dollars, above estimates, and announced an eighty billion dollar share buyback. But shares still slipped in extended trading.

COHOST: Which is a useful reminder that this market is no longer asking whether Nvidia is good. It is asking whether even exceptional numbers are enough at this valuation, in this rate environment, with this much dependence on continued AI buildout.

HOST: That is the key point. Nvidia is still functioning as a proxy for the whole AI capital spending story. If its guidance had missed, that would have looked like a direct threat to the trade. But the more subtle message from the overnight reaction is that investors now need proof not just of growth, but of durability. They want to know that the spending wave survives into 2027 and 2028, not just the next quarter.

HOST: And that leads directly into the separate AI policy story that could matter a lot for companies, infrastructure builders, and regions like Central Ohio. Reuters reports the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director briefed leading AI firms on a planned executive order that could let intelligence and other government agencies review advanced models before release. According to that report, developers could be asked to notify the government ahead of major launches and share advanced models up to ninety days before public release.

COHOST: The national policy debate is about safety and strategic visibility. The local version is about what happens when the federal government wants more oversight while places like Central Ohio keep absorbing more of the physical buildout.

HOST: That is why this is not some abstract Silicon Valley story. If Washington wants earlier access to frontier systems, it is signaling that advanced models are being treated more like critical infrastructure and national security assets. In Central Ohio, the matching reality is the continuing demand for power, land, transmission, and water tied to data-center growth. So the continuity from yesterday still holds, but the story advanced: the executive-order discussion is no longer rumor in the abstract. The White House is actively briefing firms.

HOST: Closer to home, the biggest Columbus story still moving through the system is the Columbus City Schools budget cut package. WOSU reports the district voted unanimously to cut two hundred ninety-nine positions as the final piece of a fifty million dollar reduction for the coming school year.

COHOST: And the reason this stays active is that the vote was the decision point, not the end point.

HOST: Exactly. District leaders say many of the cuts will be absorbed through open jobs, attrition, retirements, and other staffing changes, with building substitutes and attendance specialists among the main targets. But the issue for families is now much more practical than procedural. What services get thinner? Which schools feel it first? And how much can a district say cuts are furthest from the classroom before the effects still reach the classroom anyway?

HOST: This also remains one of the clearest local examples of a broader state-level squeeze. Columbus leaders are still pointing toward inadequate state funding as part of the problem, and that means the next several days are not really about whether the district cut enough. They are about whether officials can explain, in concrete terms, what gets harder next fall because fewer people are available to do the daily support work that keeps a district functioning.

HOST: On housing, the latest data still says supply is improving faster than affordability. Columbus Realtors says Central Ohio had two thousand two hundred two closed sales in April, down thirteen point six percent from a year earlier, while inventory rose thirteen point four percent, months of supply edged up to two point zero, and the median sales price climbed to three hundred forty-six thousand five hundred dollars.

COHOST: So buyers have a little more choice, but not meaningful relief.

HOST: That is the story. At the statewide level, Ohio Realtors says April home sales fell three percent from a year ago while the median price rose seven point nine percent to two hundred sixty-nine thousand nine hundred dollars. And Reuters reports pending home sales nationally increased for a third straight month in April, but economists still expect housing demand to stay subdued because mortgage rates remain high and household budgets are still under strain.

HOST: The most recent Freddie Mac benchmark, released May 14th, had the thirty-year fixed mortgage at six point three six percent. Since then, the bigger market signal has been bond volatility. Rates may not look dramatically different week to week, but for borrowers the effect is the same: monthly payments are still high enough to cancel out a lot of the benefit from better inventory. So if you are trying to read the Central Ohio market this morning, the answer is not frozen demand. It is frustrated demand.

HOST: The markets snapshot reflects that balance between relief and fragility. AP reports the S and P 500 rose seventy-nine point three six points Wednesday to seven thousand four hundred thirty-two point ninety-seven. The Dow gained six hundred forty-five point four seven to fifty thousand nine point three five. The Nasdaq added three hundred ninety-nine point six five to twenty-six thousand two hundred seventy point three six.

COHOST: That was the market taking a breath after yields cooled and oil backed off. But now the handoff is from relief rally to proof test.

HOST: Right. Reuters also reported that the ten-year Treasury yield rose again in Thursday trading after Wednesday's pause, while Nvidia's strong numbers helped lift chip sentiment globally. So the market tone this morning is better than it was earlier in the week, but not settled. Investors still need lower energy stress, less yield pressure, and enough AI earnings strength to keep risk appetite from rolling back over.

HOST: For Columbus weather, the National Weather Service digital forecast shows a much calmer day than yesterday. After the rain and storm chances moved through, today looks dry with temperatures climbing...