Senate Republicans voted against a last-ditch effort from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to fund the Transportation Security Administration, as a shutdown fight over Department of Homeland Security funding barrels on.
Schumer introduced a bill to solely fund TSA, suspending Senate rules and advancing it through the Rules Committee, which doesn’t handle appropriations legislation. Needing 60 votes to pass, it failed along party lines, 41 to 49, with six Democrats and four Republicans not voting.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) was bemused by Schumer’s idea, calling it “convoluted.”
“I don’t know how you come up with this. I will give you credit for coming up with something that’s convoluted, but it doesn’t do anything that the [Democratic] leader says it does,” Thune said.
Schumer’s effort came just an hour after President Donald Trump appeared to up the ante for Democrats to fund DHS, which has been without funding for 35 days.
On Saturday morning, Trump threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to airports as major hubs grapple with TSA officers calling out of work or quitting altogether.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before,” he posted on Truth Social.
Trump said their job would include the “immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
TRUMP THREATENS TO REPLACE TSA OFFICERS WITH ICE AGENTS AS DHS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON
He later revealed that those ICE officers would be “ready to go” as soon as Monday.
Senators have remained in Washington, D.C., for the weekend as they try to strike a funding deal for DHS. Time is very much of the essence, as a two-week recess is set to begin at the end of next week.
