President Donald Trump mocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for a near gaffe Saturday on the Senate floor.
“Schumer got ‘discombobulated’ in the Senate yesterday, and said, ‘WE MUST FUND ICE,’ prior to correcting himself,” Trump wrote Sunday morning on Truth Social. “Thank you Chuck, I agree!”
Schumer and Senate Democrats are filibustering the SAVE America Act — an election integrity bill — but the minority leader was arguing the Republicans are responsible for the government shutdown that has left American airline passengers frustrated with long TSA wait times at airports across the country.
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Schumer did quickly correct himself by saying, “We must fund TSA now,” but the irony was not lost on Trump, who has long reminded Americans that the government shutdown of Department of Homeland Security funding does not impact Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in real time, because ICE was fully funded in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Schumer’s call to “fund TSA now” was related to the Senate Democrats’ failed effort to isolate a funding package solely for TSA, but Republicans blocked that effort, noting the rest of DHS funding that is on hold due to the shutdown is vital to American national security amid strikes on Iran, too.
Republicans negotiating on DHS, including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chair Katie Britt, R-Ala., are meeting Sunday.
“There are lots of ideas swirling right now, some of which you know my colleagues are talking about, but obviously what my sense is at least the good news, and all that is people realizing this has to get fixed,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on his walk off the Senate floor Sunday morning.
“It has to get solved, but the best way again, to solve it is to get Democrats to support funding the entire Department of Homeland Security, you know, not picking and choosing certain aspects of it,” he said. “So we’ll see where the discussions go today.”
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Democrats in Congress in February agreed to fund most of the government in exchange for withholding funds from DHS following the fatal shootings of two anti-ICE agitators in Minnesota by immigration authorities.
The Senate failed to get the 60-vote supermajority needed to advance a Republican proposal to fund the entire DHS earlier in March, after Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, objected to an earlier Democratic proposal to separately fund the TSA earlier.
Moreno separately proposed a two-week DHS funding extension, but Democrats blocked that.
Absences by TSA airport officers have already disrupted travel at some major airports over the last week, raising alarm among airlines as the busy spring break travel season peaks. DHS funding lapsed Feb. 13.
Airlines are expecting a record-breaking spring travel period, with 171 million passengers expected to fly, up 4% over the same two-month period last year.
Reuters contributed to this report.
