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Aviation crisis in America! TSA walkouts and tragedy at LaGuardia · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:08
  You're listening to the Hidden Lightness on America Out Loud Talk Radio.
• 0:11
  I'm your host, Jimmy Hinton.
• 0:13
  It's official.
• 0:15
  President Trump sends ICE agents to airport to help with security.
• 0:20
  As the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, and that continues.
• 0:26
  The TSA agents are not getting paid right now.
• 0:30
  And in fact, Elon Musk has offered to pay for them.
• 0:35
  He offered to pay for their salaries, which legally he cannot do.
• 0:41
  Elon Musk is not a dummy.
• 0:42
  He knows that.
• 0:43
  And so the question is Elon making a political move to kind of push the needle and help Congress come to a decision.
• 0:53
  Is Trump doing the same thing by sending ice?
• 0:56
  He knows what the reaction is going to be from the public.
• 1:01
  And in addition to that, very sadly and tragically, Air Canada, Air Canada Express had a crash on what was that Sunday night, late Sunday night at LaGuardia.
• 1:19
  Tragically, at least a couple people have lost their lives, including the captain and co-pilot, adding more scrutiny to the shortage of air traffic controllers, and all the issues with TSA, the long lines at the airports.
• 1:36
  This is a growing, growing problem.
• 1:39
  Welcome, folks.
• 1:40
  And we are already halfway through the week, if you can believe it.
• 1:45
  A lot has happened in the news.
• 2:08
  And almost immediately the state media rejected that statement and said, we don't know what he's talking about.
• 2:17
  So things are getting very interesting.
• 2:21
  At the same time, there is a lot of pain, pain on the pocketbook in America.
• 2:26
  We have gas prices, at least where I live.
• 2:29
  They're now $4 a gallon for regular gas and almost $6 a gallon for diesel fuel.
• 2:39
  And uh right in time for farming season to begin, as farmers go out and plow the field, disc the fields, do their spring planting, diesel fuel is pushing pretty much an all-time high because of the war.
• 3:00
  And there's already an affordability crisis with our farmers in America, and this certainly is not helping.
• 3:07
  So a lot going on this week.
• 3:10
  And I guess the question is since this is the hidden lightness, where's the good news in the middle of all this?
• 3:18
  Because a lot of people are hurting right now, and this war has dramatically increased inflation.
• 3:25
  In fact, the the Fed rate decision came out, and uh federal uh Fed chairman Jerome Powell made the announcement last week that they were not going to raise rates or lower rates, rather.
• 3:42
  So interest rates are saying staying exactly the same, and now it's pretty much baked into the market that everywhere in the world they're planning on holding rates, and some may even talk about increasing the rates again.
• 4:00
  So that means borrowing money is going to become more expensive at the same time with the inflation, our purchasing power is decreasing pretty dramatically.
• 4:12
  So definitely a lot going on, and I think that's a very important question is where's the silver lining in all of this?
• 4:22
  Is there hope?
• 4:24
  Do we find light at the end of the tunnel?
• 4:28
  Uh is the price of gas going to go back down.
• 4:33
  Uh when is it going to go down if it goes down?
• 4:37
  These are all questions with a whole lot of unknowns.
• 4:41
  So we're in uh pretty choppy waters right now, to be honest.
• 4:46
  And uh President Trump seems to be bucking the system, putting his head forward, and uh like a bull in a China shop, he just keeps pressing forward.
• 4:58
  So lots and lots and lots going on.
• 5:03
  There's a definitely a lot on the hearts and minds of the American people, and rightfully so.
• 5:10
  So we're gonna get right to it, folks.
• 5:13
  Let's begin by talking about this accident.
• 5:17
  We don't know a whole lot about it.
• 5:19
  Uh, this happened on Sunday night, and I listened to the air traffic control uh to the recording, and of course there hasn't been an investigation.
• 5:32
  That'll begin pretty much immediately.
• 5:34
  So anything I say is not gospel fact.
• 5:38
  We just don't know.
• 5:39
  Uh but it sounded like it sounded like air traffic control had given a fire truck permission to cross over runway 04.
• 5:54
  And they were actually responding to another incident with another airplane that supposedly had some kind of a smell, and the fire truck was going over to that airplane to uh check out what the issue was.
• 6:08
  They got on with air traffic control, requested to cross runway 04, and air traffic control, he kind of hesitated for a minute, and then he said, uh, you know, basically, I I give you permission cross runway zero four.
• 6:27
  And almost immediately, as soon as he said that, is as if he realized what he had done.
• 6:34
  He said, Air Canada stop, stop, stop.
• 6:37
  And then he changed to the fire truck, and he said, fire engine one, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
• 6:44
  And he just kept saying it.
• 6:45
  And then you could hear some beeping in the background, and then he uh told the next airplane that was coming in uh for their landing, he said, reject, reject the landing, do a go-around.
• 6:58
  And then it just kind of got frantic from there, and uh the damage was already done.
• 7:06
  So it's a tragic incident, and it's bringing a lot of scrutiny to uh to air safety, which this administration from the very beginning was under scrutiny because of the the uh series of crashes that happened within the first month of Trump taking office.
• 7:25
  And uh, of course, I did a couple shows on that, and I talked about how the media sensationalized those crashes and was making it sound like we're having more crashes now than ever before in the history of America.
• 7:42
  And the reality is President Biden had significantly more crashes within the first few days of office or first couple months or whatever it was, comparatively, uh there were a lot more crashes under President Biden, and I'm not saying that to point fingers at Biden or to take pressure off of President Trump.
• 8:05
  I'm just saying that the media constantly manipulates numbers, and they sensationalize these stories for their own gain and for views and clicks and to make it sound horrible and terrible and worse than it is, and uh, you know uh what they ought to do is just to treat every single trash crash, not trash, crash independently.
• 8:34
  Treat them each independently and talk about the sorrow and how we just don't have information because we don't until the NTSB does their final investigation and final report.
• 8:51
  We honestly don't know.
• 8:52
  We can speculate what happened, but the reality is none of us were in the cockpit.
• 8:59
  None of us were behind the controls.
• 9:02
  None of us were in the tower.
• 9:05
  None of us were inside of the fire truck.
• 9:10
  So we can speculate and we can say, well, why didn't they, you know, why didn't the fire truck look both ways before crossing the runway?
• 9:18
  How didn't the pilots see a truck that was crossing the runway?
• 9:23
  And how didn't they hear the chatter?
• 9:25
  And and why didn't they do it?
• 9:26
  Why didn't the captain decide to do a go-around?
• 9:30
  You know, we can ask those questions, and and people can come up to with their own conclusions, but the reality is we don't know.
• 9:40
  Until that report releases, we do not know, and we have to acknowledge that.
• 9:58
  So the reality is that it's
• 10:00
  It's uh it's a tragedy, and it's it's uh it's sad.
• 10:03
  It needs to be investigated, it will be investigated, it is being investigated, and they will find out what series of events led to this tragic accident.
• 10:15
  But there should be scrutiny right now.
• 10:19
  You know, the the air traffic controllers are very overworked, understaffed, underpaid for what they're doing.
• 10:28
  And every time the government has a shutdown, it threatens their it threatens their pay, with the exception of temporarily the one big beautiful bill, kind of alleviates that so that if there is a full government shutdown, they find funding from different areas where the air traffic controllers at least can remain on payroll.
• 10:55
  And the reason that's important is because none of us wants to work without getting paid.
• 11:00
  It's my my mom did that.
• 11:02
  She worked for a government job and worked something like six or seven months without receiving one single penny.
• 11:12
  Now, when the funding was opened back up, I I forget what the issue was that bottlenecked, but that's uh it's how the government is.
• 11:21
  The government absolutely gets an F minus minus when it comes to paying people.
• 11:29
  I know I have and am experiencing it.
• 11:38
  Very few times when the government owed me money, did it come in a timely manner?
• 11:44
  Uh, and usually whenever it did come, it's because I knew somebody who was actually filling out the vouchers and uh filling out the paperwork to release the money, and I was able to communicate with them and make sure that everything was on time.
• 12:01
  But when you don't have that luxury, it's it's a gamble.
• 12:05
  It really is.
• 12:06
  They're absolutely horrible at paying people, they're very good at wasting money, they're very good at throwing money out the window.
• 12:16
  They're very good at collecting money, they're very good at taxing people into oblivion.
• 12:22
  But the government is absolutely horrific when it comes to delivering.
• 12:27
  This is another reason why off the subject, but why they should never have anything to do with our health care.
• 12:35
  Keep the government out of it.
• 12:39
  They're terrible.
• 12:41
  So at any rate, the government's under scrutiny right now.
• 12:48
  Because air traffic controllers, which are the lifeblood, uh, along with pilots, they're the lifeblood of keeping these airplanes going, keeping keeping them on schedule, keeping them safe, keeping passengers, millions of passengers safe.
• 13:05
  It's a very high um high intensity, high stress job.
• 13:14
  And I just saw a thing where a uh a former air traffic controller who's now a pilot was talking about the difference between the two, and he said it's so much more laid back as a pilot.
• 13:26
  He said it's so much easier being a pilot than it was air traffic control.
• 13:31
  It's a tough job.
• 13:33
  And for pilots, the pay is better.
• 13:36
  Yeah, air traffic controllers have it tough.
• 13:38
  They really do.
• 13:39
  I think a lot of people, they look at their income, and it's uh triple digits, and people are like, oh, it must be nice.
• 13:46
  Must be nice to get paid that well.
• 13:50
  Well, then you have stuff like this, where potentially mistakes were made.
• 13:57
  Uh I I would not want to be the air traffic controller who uh was behind the controls at the time of this accident for a host of reasons.
• 14:10
  But uh yeah, it's it's not the glamorous job that people think it is.
• 14:17
  So it's it's tough.
• 14:19
  And then when they go months without being paid, even weeks without being paid, it just complicates the situation even more.
• 14:28
  So there's got to be some kind of a uh a cleanup to this.
• 14:31
  So at the same time, TSA, the federal agents who, you know, the ones who are responsible for keeping passengers safe, keeping terrorists off of airplanes, you know, those people.
• 14:46
  A lot of them are quitting their jobs.
• 14:49
  They've already resigned.
• 14:51
  I forget how many.
• 14:53
  It's it's pretty significant.
• 14:56
  Here we go.
• 14:57
  Uh according to the Hill, more than 400 TSA employees quit since the shutdown began.
• 15:03
  I saw reports that people should be waiting, uh, you know, they should be arriving at least two hours before they uh their flight leaves because the lines are so long.
• 15:14
  They said you can count on a minimum of an hour in line, but some of the lines are two hours plus, and it's just absolutely terrible.
• 15:27
  So uh yeah, the shutdown began, uh, the partial shutdown began on February 14th, according to Department of Homeland Security.
• 15:37
  Acting DHS assistant secretary Lauren Biss said a statement that resignations and absences have skyrocketed since the department's funding lapsed.
• 15:48
  As TSA officers report falling behind on bills as they continue to work without the promise of a paycheck anytime soon.
• 15:56
  That's exactly right.
• 15:57
  You know, it it's easy for the government to point fingers and at the TSA agents and be like, well, you you guys have to show up.
• 16:05
  It's it's your duty to show up whether you're getting paid or not.
• 16:09
  Well, the reality is they have mouths to feed.
• 16:13
  They have bills like the rest of us.
• 16:17
  They have mortgage payments, they have uh car payments.
• 16:22
  They have utilities that they have to pay.
• 16:26
  They're human like the rest of us.
• 16:29
  They have lives like the rest of us.
• 16:33
  So, yeah, crazy.
• 16:35
  Uh DHS assistant secretary Lauren Bist continued.
• 16:38
  She said, This is pointless.
• 16:40
  This pointless, reckless shutdown of our homeland security workforce has caused more than 400 TSA officers to quit and thousands to call out from work because they're not able to afford gas, child care, food, or rent.
• 16:58
  She just said that in a statement on Monday morning.
• 17:02
  Uh, we're coming up on a break here.
• 17:04
  We'll talk more about this after the break.
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• 19:41
  The partial government shutdown has created absolute chaos at a time when there's already a lot of scrutiny.
• 19:48
  There was just uh a horrific accident at LaGuardia on Sunday night, uh, almost early Monday morning.
• 19:56
  It was like 11 40 something at night.
• 20:00
  Um that is getting a lot of attention right now because of the already tough scrutiny that the TSA is under.
• 20:09
  Uh, or not TSA, the air traffic control uh, because of the staffing issues and uh there's a major shortage, they're under a lot of pressure.
• 20:18
  LaGuardia is one of the busiest, if not the busiest airport in the world, and uh it's just it's a lot, a lot, a lot of issues, a lot of compound issues.
• 20:30
  Now the Democrats have effectively kept the government shut down.
• 20:36
  They refuse to budge.
• 20:37
  The the Republicans have passed two uh complete resolutions, passed two times, and the Democrats have vowed to continue to block it.
• 20:50
  They're essentially starving DHS, and they're trying to get some kind of negotiating chips for President Trump to eliminate ice, or at least get ICE to uh back down, and they have a whole bunch of demands, and it's causing a lot of issues.
• 21:08
  So uh that shutdown, the partial government shutdown right now has starved out TSA.
• 21:14
  TSA agents are not getting paid, they haven't been paid for at least a couple weeks, almost uh three weeks or something like that, four weeks.
• 21:24
  Uh it's a lot.
• 21:26
  So what they're doing is they're just not showing up to work.
• 21:30
  And I can't say that I blame them.
• 21:33
  A lot, a lot of people in the public are outraged.
• 21:36
  How could you do this to us?
• 21:38
  You've inconvenienced us.
• 21:41
  Look at the long lines, and it's uh it's created quite the issue.
• 21:49
  And I gotta tell you, when people are flying, they don't really care whether it's Republican or Democrat, they take their wrath out on the people who are right in front of them.
• 22:00
  And so tempers are flaring at airports.
• 22:03
  There are increased incidents of violence happening at airports, people getting angry, they're they're raging, and they just want it fixed.
• 22:14
  So enter Elon Musk.
• 22:18
  Elon Musk vowed to, or offered anyway, to pay TSA agents to pay their salaries until the government opens up.
• 22:26
  There's one problem with that.
• 22:28
  Legally, he can't do it.
• 22:31
  There are tons of loopholes.
• 22:33
  Tons of them.
• 22:35
  Federal workers cannot receive gifts, bribes, uh, salaries from outside sources, and it's just creating a lot of problems.
• 22:50
  And so the question is, Elon Musk knows that.
• 22:54
  Why would he offer to pay for their salaries?
• 22:57
  I think this was a move to get the attention of President Trump and lawmakers.
• 23:05
  And uh at the same time to try to calm down the American public.
• 23:10
  Well, lo and behold, here is a newsweek article.
• 23:15
  Trump reacts to Elon Musk offering to pay TSA agents' salaries.
• 23:21
  Now, I can kind of imagine where this is gonna go.
• 23:26
  President Trump is going to praise it, that's a good idea.
• 23:29
  Let's do it.
• 23:31
  And he knows full well that Elon Musk can't do it.
• 23:34
  So let's read a little bit of this.
• 23:36
  President Donald Trump on Monday welcomed billionaire Elon Musk's offer to personally cover the salaries of Transportation Security Administration, TSA workers who've gone without pay during the ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding lapse, calling the proposal a positive development as airport disruptions intensify nationwide.
• 24:02
  Asked my reporters about Trump's or sorry, Musk's suggestion.
• 24:07
  Trump responded simply, yeah, I'd love it.
• 24:10
  I think it's great.
• 24:11
  Let him do that.
• 24:13
  Well, Trump knows full well that he can't do it.
• 24:18
  And this is the thing about politics.
• 24:22
  You know, we have to understand at the end of the day, these people are politicians.
• 24:28
  I don't care what people say, I don't care what Trump says about draining the swamp, and I'm not a I'm not a career politician, and I'm not a politician at heart.
• 24:38
  He can say he can stay that all day long.
• 24:41
  At the end of the day, he's a politician.
• 24:46
  He's our commander in chief, he's our president.
• 24:50
  He's a politician.
• 24:53
  He knows the rules.
• 24:54
  He knows that Elon Musk can't pay the salaries.
• 24:58
  So he gives a thumbs up.
• 24:59
  He's like, yep, love it.
• 25:00
  Let's do it.
• 25:01
  Let him do it.
• 25:03
  Musk made the offer on X on Saturday, saying he would step in to pay TSA employees as the funding impasse drags on and long security lines spread across major U.S.
• 25:15
  airports during the busy spring break travel season.
• 25:20
  The exchange highlights the extraordinary political and operational strain created by the DHS shutdown.
• 25:27
  That's exactly right.
• 25:28
  So this exchange is meant to highlight the complete chaos that's going on.
• 25:37
  That's the reason Elon Musk did it.
• 25:39
  Now, I'm not saying that he wouldn't do it, because I think wholeheartedly he would.
• 25:45
  If he could legally, if there was a way to do it, I think he would pay their salaries.
• 25:50
  I really do.
• 25:54
  As essential employees, TSA screeners have continued reporting to work despite missing paychecks.
• 26:04
  A situation that has triggered resignations, increased sick outs, and growing concerns about airport security and passenger safety.
• 26:16
  Musk's offer and Trump's endorsement of it underscores how unconventional solutions are now entering the debate as Congress remains deadlocked.
• 26:28
  So what do you make of that?
• 26:32
  I mean, it is an absolute mess.
• 26:38
  And the Democrats, they did that.
• 26:43
  Now, you know the stickers that people put.
• 26:46
  Speaking of, I did that.
• 26:49
  You remember when gas prices were outrageous during Biden's presidency, and then people would put those stickers at the gas pump.
• 26:57
  And it was a picture of Biden pointing up, and they'd put it right below the price of gas.
• 27:03
  And it it was Biden with a little um bubble, like a text bubble, and it said, I did that.
• 27:10
  Well, now people made stickers of Trump pointing up at the price of gas, and the same thing.
• 27:19
  I did that.
• 27:20
  And they're posting these at gas stations all over the U.S.
• 27:23
  I think it's kind of um, I think it's a little bit funny.
• 27:27
  And at the end of the day, Trump did do that.
• 27:33
  So he's gonna spin it somehow.
• 27:35
  Somehow he's gonna spin that and make it sound like it was the Democrats, and it's their fault.
• 27:40
  But at the end of the day, he has to take ownership of the current gas prices.
• 27:47
  That is a direct result of the war that he himself started.
• 27:54
  Now I'm not saying it's right, wrong, uh, indifferent or anything in between.
• 28:00
  I'm just saying he's got to take credibility for boosting up gas prices.
• 28:09
  All right, so uh a lot, a lot is going on.
• 28:13
  So at the same time, Elon Musk has the attention of pretty much everybody.
• 28:19
  And that was the point.
• 28:20
  He wanted to get the attention of uh the American people, he wanted to get the attention of Congress, he wanted to get the attention of President Trump.
• 28:28
  That worked.
• 28:29
  President Trump already responded.
• 28:33
  And so the question is what's gonna happen.
• 28:37
  Um read a little bit more.
• 28:40
  This is again his newsweek.
• 28:42
  Against the backdrop, Musk wrote on X that he would be willing to pay TSA salaries during the impasse, saying the shutdown was negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country.
• 28:55
  While it remains unclear whether such an arrangement would be legally permissible, I'll give you a hint, it's not.
• 29:04
  The proposal quickly drew political reactions.
• 29:08
  Senator John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, praised Musk's offer as incredibly generous in a post on X.
• 29:16
  Whew, he's really, he is just man, the Democrats hate him.
• 29:24
  He's digging a deeper hole just by being a decent senator, a decent human.
• 29:30
  He's digging a deep hole.
• 29:32
  And isn't that interesting?
• 29:33
  You know, you praise the words and and the acts of somebody, somebody being generous.
• 29:39
  You praise the good guy, and the Democrats are there to jab you with their pitchforks.
• 29:46
  They're ready to burn you at the stake.
• 29:50
  It's really interesting.
• 29:51
  It really, really is.
• 29:53
  The more good you do, the more the Democrats are there to denounce you and hate you.
• 30:01
  And they're saying that.
• 30:03
  Like, honest goodness, I'm reading so many things that Democrats are saying about John Fetterman just in the past four days.
• 30:10
  They hate his guts.
• 30:13
  They want him gone and by gone.
• 30:15
  I mean, not just out of office.
• 30:18
  They want him eliminated.
• 30:23
  So, yeah, interestingly, Senator Fetterman, he's like, yeah, I think it's incredibly generous.
• 30:31
  And then he criticized for allowing the situation to reach this point.
• 30:35
  Fetterman went on to say TSA agents across the country are relying on food pantries and community donations just to get by.
• 30:45
  And he's right.
• 30:47
  It's not right.
• 30:49
  This is absolutely not right.
• 30:55
  He remains the only Democrat to vote with the Republicans to fully fund DHS and get workers paid.
• 31:02
  The only Democrat.
• 31:03
  What does that tell you about the Democratic Party right now?
• 31:08
  This whole thing that everybody's been saying for a long, long time that they're the party of no, that they're the party that they resist everything and everyone.
• 31:19
  Resist, resist.
• 31:22
  It's very true.
• 31:26
  Very, very true.
• 31:29
  They're just proving everybody right.
• 31:33
  They're the anti-party.
• 31:35
  They're anti everything.
• 31:38
  When you have 99% of Democrats vote against funding the government, that's insane.
• 31:47
  That's crazy.
• 31:48
  I don't care.
• 31:49
  Like, I understand when people are divided.
• 31:52
  I get that.
• 31:54
  But when there's that big of a divide, when nearly 100% vote against funding the government for essential workers.
• 32:06
  You've got a problem.
• 32:09
  Um a bill to restore DHS funding failed to advance the Senate on Friday, despite support from all Republicans present, and Fetterman.
• 32:22
  Crazy.
• 32:37
  What happened to the Democrats who claim to be uh the party for or of the working class?
• 32:44
  Stop the games, fund DHS, pay these Patriots.
• 32:52
  Senator Tim Kane of Virginia Democrat on CBS.
• 32:56
  Uh Stevie S's face the nation on March 8th said, let's confine the ice and CBP.
• 33:04
  It's customs and border protection.
• 33:08
  Let's confine the reform discussion to just those two agencies and fund the others.
• 33:15
  Thus far, Republicans have blocked those efforts.
• 33:18
  We want to fund TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
• 33:28
  And on and on it goes.
• 33:30
  So what Elon Musk did, it was actually really, really brilliant.
• 33:37
  He got people talking.
• 33:39
  He reignited the conversation on Washington Hill.
• 33:44
  And uh hopefully this is going to gain some momentum.
• 33:50
  So if any if there's any silver lining in this, it's that possibly Elon Musk just stoked the fires and uh kind of moved the needle a little bit.
• 34:01
  So I'm hoping that that's the case.
• 34:03
  He definitely got the attention of Trump.
• 34:06
  He got the attention of uh of representatives of Congressmen.
• 34:13
  And I don't know, we'll see what happens.
• 34:16
  But what I wouldn't count on is that they're gonna work overtime to find some loophole to where Elon Musk actually can pay the workers because keep in mind the Democrats hate, absolutely hate Elon Musk.
• 34:33
  He is the antichrist to them.
• 34:35
  Uh the Democrats are the ones who were setting Teslas on fire.
• 34:41
  The Democrats are the ones who are drawing swastikas on the sides of Teslas.
• 34:49
  They were the ones doing all that.
• 34:53
  So if you think that they're gonna they're gonna reach across the aisle and be like, oh, well, let's let's come up with a loophole where Elon Musk actually can fund just TSA while we keep uh keep the government shut down.
• 35:08
  They're not gonna do it.
• 35:10
  They're absolutely not going to do it.
• 35:14
  But what this did, and I mean, it's the reason I'm talking about it.
• 35:20
  It got the attention of the American people, and now the government looks really, really bad.
• 35:25
  As if the American people don't hate the government enough.
• 35:29
  This is making them look really bad.
• 35:31
  And now we have an accident.
• 35:34
  And even though that's not technically related to TSA, it's putting a whole lot of pressure, uh, public pressure on Congress right now.
• 35:48
  Yeah, when we fly, we want to know that we're safe.
• 35:52
  I don't know about you, but I probably can guarantee that 100% of us when we fly, we want to know that we and our family members are safe.
• 36:04
  We want to know that we're safe from terrorism.
• 36:07
  We want to know that we're safe when a plane takes off and lands.
• 36:11
  We want to know that we're safe when we're in the air.
• 36:13
  We want to be safe.
• 36:15
  We want that reassurance, we want that confidence.
• 36:18
  And right now, Americans are losing confidence just when they were getting their confidence back.
• 36:25
  You remember the at the at the beginning of Trump's uh when he took office, the American people were very untrusting of TSA, they were untrusting of the FAA, they were they were untrusting of air traffic controllers, especially.
• 36:45
  Well, that that trust was gained back.
• 36:47
  I did a story on Delta.
• 36:51
  Delta's doing very well.
• 36:54
  You know, they paid these dividends out to their employees.
• 36:58
  Delta's doing very well.
• 37:02
  And then this happens.
• 37:06
  And just like that, it doesn't take long.
• 37:09
  Just like that.
• 37:12
  All the trust that the American people had now eroded.
• 37:16
  We've got to get that trust back.
• 37:18
  These people have got to get their heads out of the sand.
• 37:22
  These politicians need to stop playing games with the American people.
• 37:25
  Because at the end of the day, that's really who they're messing with.
• 37:29
  They're messing with all of us.
• 37:31
  And they've got to straighten it out.
• 37:33
  We're coming up on another break here.
• 37:35
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• 37:38
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• 39:15
  Well, is the government going to open back up?
• 39:19
  There's a partial shutdown right now.
• 39:21
  It's affecting a lot of people, including TSA, and I would say especially TSA.
• 39:26
  They're the ones most affected, and uh over 400 TSA employees have quit.
• 39:32
  Thousands are calling into work, they're calling off, they're calling in sick.
• 39:36
  People are lined up at airports all across the country.
• 39:40
  That's affecting the bottom line of all the major um the major airliners, airline companies, they're all taking a big hit.
• 39:52
  Fuel right now is outrageous, which is causing them to take a hit.
• 39:58
  It's eating into their bottom line.
• 40:01
  Eating into profits.
• 40:04
  Can you imagine what jet fuel is right now?
• 40:07
  I mean, look at what these diesel fuel where I'm at, it's almost six bucks a gallon.
• 40:13
  Jet fuel was already more than six, seven bucks a gallon.
• 40:18
  I can't imagine what it is right now.
• 40:20
  Well, what that does is those costs get passed on to the passengers, to the consumer.
• 40:28
  And now we're paying more.
• 40:30
  We're paying a lot more to travel.
• 40:32
  And what do we get for it?
• 40:34
  What do we get for that?
• 40:35
  Well, now they're charging for literally everything.
• 40:38
  If you if you breathe the air, you know, the airliners are going to start, they're going to start charging you for that.
• 40:44
  They charge you for everything now to try to nickel and dime the customers because they're losing money.
• 40:51
  And uh you also get these big long lines.
• 40:56
  Huge lines at the airport because TSA is not showing up.
• 41:01
  That's not very reassuring.
• 41:04
  Security lines are up to two hours right now across the country at some airports.
• 41:11
  Uh that's due to staffing shortages because of the government shutdown.
• 41:15
  So a lot's going on, and we have Elon Musk offering to pay for TSA agents.
• 41:21
  Uh, legally, he cannot do that.
• 41:23
  So President Trump praised his efforts.
• 41:26
  John Fetterman praised his efforts.
• 41:29
  It got the attention of politicians, and uh that's creating quite a buzz.
• 41:34
  It also got the attention of the American people.
• 41:38
  And the question is, is that gonna move the needle?
• 41:41
  Well, at the same time, President Trump has a strategy, and he just implemented his strategy, and that is to put ICE agents at the airports for airport security.
• 41:55
  Because keep in mind, ICE is funded right now.
• 42:01
  So I don't know if this is brilliant or just insane.
• 42:09
  I want to lean towards brilliant.
• 42:11
  I I it it seems like he knows what he's doing.
• 42:17
  But this is wild.
• 42:18
  U.S.
• 42:19
  immigration and customs enforcement agents, ICE will be sent to airports to help with increasingly long lines at security checkpoints, the Trump administration has said.
• 42:30
  This is a BBC article.
• 42:34
  President Donald Trump posted on social media that ICE agents will go to airports on Monday.
• 42:40
  While Borders are Tom Homan told CNN that his team was working out the details of the plan.
• 42:52
  TSA officers criticize the move, saying staff deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained armed agents.
• 43:03
  And I have to admit, I think that's a decent criticism.
• 43:09
  ICE is not trained.
• 43:12
  They're not trained to screen people.
• 43:18
  This is crazy.
• 43:19
  And Trump knows it's crazy.
• 43:21
  That's a thing.
• 43:22
  He knows it's crazy, and he did it anyway.
• 43:26
  He knows how much the Democrats hate ICE.
• 43:30
  They hate ICE as much as they hate Trump.
• 43:35
  As much as they hate goodness and kindness.
• 43:40
  Yet they absolutely loathe ICE and ICE agents and everything that ICE stands for.
• 43:47
  The whole reason for the shutdown is to try to get leverage to basically uh put ice in their little corner in federal federal corner where they can't get out and enter into the public again.
• 44:06
  And what does Trump do?
• 44:09
  He takes those very ICE agents.
• 44:12
  He's like, all right, we'll just put them in the every airport in the United States is going to have ICE agents now.
• 44:21
  That is wild.
• 44:22
  I I I'm telling you, this is wild.
• 44:28
  That was a very, very bold move.
• 44:32
  And I think I can't prove it, but I think what his plan is, you get the Democrats so outraged, so upset that they begin to unravel.
• 44:43
  They begin to just fall apart.
• 44:47
  To where Trump has the upper hand, and now they're going to be willing to negotiate because what's worse than having the government shut down, what's worse than you know, obviously that doesn't bother the Democrats anymore, having the government shut down.
• 45:02
  But what's worse than airplane crashes?
• 45:05
  What's worse than uh TSA agents not being paid?
• 45:09
  What's worse than a whole bunch of TSA resigning?
• 45:15
  Well, that would be ICE showing up to airports and acting as security.
• 45:23
  They have to be seeing red right now, and I don't mean Republican.
• 45:28
  They're seeing red because they're angry.
• 45:31
  They're so upset.
• 45:34
  This was a very bold move by President Trump.
• 45:39
  And as I said, if it works, this is gonna get people to the negotiating table, and that's what President Trump does.
• 45:47
  He is the negotiator in chief.
• 45:51
  Now I know he's hard-nosed, he's he's just worse than a bull in a China shop.
• 45:59
  He never thinks before he talks.
• 46:02
  He said so many things.
• 46:05
  Uh done so many things that I just I stand in absolute shock.
• 46:10
  I can't believe it.
• 46:13
  I mean, he's borderline just crazy, deranged.
• 46:21
  But he's also done a lot of brilliant things.
• 46:25
  And he he gets negotiations done.
• 46:30
  So I think this was his last bargaining chip.
• 46:33
  And he just threw it out there.
• 46:35
  You know, he doesn't tease these ideas, he doesn't threaten.
• 46:38
  You'll never see President Trump threaten.
• 46:42
  He just says it as it is.
• 46:46
  You you um you don't cooperate, then it's over.
• 46:55
  Here's what I do.
• 46:56
  Look at what he did with Iran the first time what he did with Iran when he bombed the uh with the bunker busters, he bombed their uranium enrichment site.
• 47:10
  He didn't negotiate with people first.
• 47:14
  He didn't ask for permission, he didn't warn them, he wasn't like, well, if you know, if you don't straighten up, you know, it's like the parent who gives all kinds of empty warnings and never really does anything.
• 47:26
  He didn't do that.
• 47:30
  He just went in and bombed the crap out of them.
• 47:34
  And then came back and he's like, all right, you guys straighten up, or there's more where this came from.
• 47:42
  So I really believe that sending ICE agents is uh it's a bold move.
• 47:49
  It's a really bold move, and I I hope it works.
• 47:54
  Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
• 47:57
  ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA agents who have stayed on the job.
• 48:04
  He says, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents to the airports where they will do security like no one has ever seen before.
• 48:15
  He gets those little jabs in.
• 48:17
  It's like no one ever sees, no one has ever seen before.
• 48:23
  ICE is not trained, they're not trained for airport security.
• 48:26
  So I doubt that they're gonna be doing the job.
• 48:28
  Like, no, well, maybe they will be doing it like no one has ever seen before.
• 48:32
  Maybe, you know, I think he means that as a compliment, but maybe it's gonna be a disaster.
• 48:37
  Who knows?
• 48:39
  Time will tell, but the reason he did this, make no mistake, the reason he did this was to get under the skin of the Democrats and to prove a point.
• 48:54
  He says instead, um, you know, the TSA or ICE, they're gonna be used to free up TSA agents to conduct the screenings that they're trained to do.
• 49:04
  ICE is not gonna be directly involved in screening passengers, according to Tom Homan.
• 49:11
  He said that they're gonna cover entry and exit points, so that relieves TSA, uh TSA officer to go to the screening and reduce those lines.
• 49:20
  But the real issue is if they don't open up pay for these people, you're not gonna have the majority of TSA agents stay on for months at a time without pay.
• 49:31
  Eventually you're gonna have more resign, and it's just gonna, it's gonna exasperate a problem that's already bad.
• 49:39
  You know, this is not good right now.
• 49:44
  Tom Holman says he's still working with the TSA and ICE to iron out the details, including how many agents would be involved, but he said the plan will be finalized before agents were deployed on.
• 50:00
  On Monday.
• 50:02
  So very ironically, the same day that Trump sends ice agents to the airports across America.
• 50:10
  We have a horrific crash at LaGuardia in New York.
• 50:15
  So I would say, man, the dominoes are lining up right now.
• 50:20
  The Democrats have got to get their heads out of the sand, and they've got to work this out.
• 50:26
  They got to put their big boy and girl pants on and come to the negotiating table and figure this out.
• 50:32
  They've got to open the government back up.
• 50:36
  The American public is not going to tolerate this for a whole lot longer.
• 50:39
  I can promise you that.
• 50:42
  So here you have it.
• 50:44
  In a statement to the BBC's newspaper partner, CBS News, DHS spokesperson said the president is using every tool available to help American travelers.
• 50:56
  While the Democrats continue to put the safety, dependability, and ease of our air traffic or air travel at risk.
• 51:05
  President Trump is taking action to deploy hundreds of ICE officers that are currently funded by Congress to airports being adversely impacted.
• 51:14
  The DHS spokesperson said on Sunday.
• 51:30
  I have my doubts that it'll happen immediately, but it will happen eventually.
• 51:35
  Eventually they're going to open up the government.
• 51:38
  House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries responded to the announcement on Sunday telling CNN the deployment of ICE agents is the last thing the American people need.
• 51:49
  There you have it.
• 51:49
  See what I mean?
• 51:50
  The Democrats, this is gonna make their skin absolutely crawl.
• 51:56
  They're gonna go absolutely insane over this.
• 51:59
  They're losing their minds.
• 52:02
  And I think that's a good thing.
• 52:12
  He wants them to uh, you know, do what do what James Carville did.
• 52:16
  I hate the man.
• 52:19
  You know, like he just looks like a deranged idiot, and that's exactly what Trump wants.
• 52:25
  He wants them to be pushed to the breaking point to where they just look uh where American people look to them as a bunch of babbling idiots, and uh they lose all credibility.
• 52:42
  That's exactly what Trump wants.
• 52:44
  Make no mistake, that's what he wants.
• 52:47
  And I think his wish is gonna come true.
• 52:52
  You know, uh they are they are losing their minds over this.
• 53:00
  And I don't think I don't think having ice at airports is really gonna do a whole lot logistically.
• 53:06
  I just I don't think it's gonna do a whole lot to help.
• 53:10
  I think this was absolutely a political move to force the Democrats, either one to just do what they do, that's not forcing them.
• 53:21
  You know, that that's uh just letting them do what they do, and that's to talk, just let them talk.
• 53:29
  Or the second one is to force them to a vote because they hate this so much that they're gonna sit down and they'll actually come to some kind of a compromise.
• 53:43
  And it's just it's a shame that you have to manipulate people into doing what's right into funding the government.
• 53:52
  And it really is sad that the American people suffer.
• 53:55
  We're the ones who suffer.
• 53:56
  At the end of the day, we the people suffer.
• 54:03
  When they have these showdowns, we suffer.
• 54:07
  When they refuse to fund the government, we suffer.
• 54:14
  When they play games and play chess and all this political back and forth, we suffer.
• 54:24
  Now I think there's such a clear picture.
• 54:28
  When you look at the pictures of these lines at the airports, look how long the lines are.
• 54:35
  Some of these people are traveling with with sick or elderly people, they're the ones who suffer.
• 54:44
  A lot of people who travel are traveling due to emergencies.
• 54:48
  They have a death in the family or something that causes them to uh have to travel.
• 54:56
  And they suffer.
• 54:59
  So it's just very sick games that uh that politicians are playing right now, and a lot of this is coming from the political left.
• 55:10
  So I think that combination, it's it's kind of the perfect storm uh for for the government to open back up.
• 55:17
  So I am hopeful.
• 55:20
  Yeah, I don't think the Democrats are gonna be leaders on this.
• 55:23
  I think that they're gonna have to put their tail between their legs and uh come to the table and figure something out, but uh, but it it really is the perfect storm.
• 55:34
  You have Elon Musk offering to pay the TSA agents.
• 55:38
  You have over 400 TSA agents who quit.
• 55:43
  You have thousands who are not showing up to work.
• 55:47
  They're they're calling in sick because they're not getting paid.
• 55:50
  You have Trump who deployed ICE agents to airports across the United States, and on Monday, we had a bad plane accident that claimed the lives of several people at LaGuardia.
• 56:03
  Uh, this is the perfect storm for people to kick into gear and to get the government funded.
• 56:13
  That, my friends, is the hidden lightness.
• 56:15
  I think it'll happen.
• 56:16
  I think it'll come.
• 56:18
  You can find more out about my show and get all the latest podcasts if you go to the menu navigation board, America Outloud.news under our shows or schedule.
• 56:25
  You'll be in the know.
• 56:27
  There is a hidden lightness that shines inside of all of us.
• 56:30
  When there's so much darkness that envelops the world, remember that it doesn't take much light to expose that darkness and to ultimately inspire other people.
• 56:38
  Join me in being a light.