Did Donald Trump choose to keep TSA workers unpaid? GOP Senator claims President had a choice

While President Donald Trump has been critical of the Democrats, solely blaming them for the ongoing crisis in airports, a recent statement by Republican Senator John Kennedy has indicated that the President could have ended the stalemate by agreeing to a funding proposal that GOP Senators were willing to accept. Kennedy said in a recent interview that President Trump was unwilling to cut any kind of a deal with his political rivals. While the reasons for this could be manifold, including the Democrats' aversion to the SAVE America Act, Senator Kennedy did not shed light on what led to the President's decision.

"Senator (Ted) Cruz and I came up with a plan," he said. "The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted and I said, 'Okay, let’s accept their offer.' At the same time, we would offer a bill for reconciliation where we don't need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE. That way, we're out of the shutdown, and DHS is back open. Senator Thune submitted that to President Trump. As is his right, he said no. No deals with the Democrats." "It would have worked. We could have had TSA paid by the end of the week, but the President said no deal," Kennedy added.

According to a report in The New York Times, President Trump has explicitly asked his Republican Party colleagues not to make any deals with the Democrats. This is because he wanted to use the shutdown as leverage to pass the SAVE America Act, which is essentially a voter ID bill. However, critics believe that the Act could suppress voter rights ahead of the crucial midterm elections later this year. 

"I'm strongly suggesting to the Republican Party, don't make any deal on anything," President Trump said as per the report. "Don't make any deal on anything unless you include voter ID." While the two sides argue over the way forward, passengers are having to deal with long lines at airports. The President has deployed ICE agents to help TSA workers, but that is seemingly causing even more chaos. In a recent video that has been doing the rounds online, ICE agents are seen forcefully detaining a woman who was at the San Francisco Airport with her daughter. It should be mentioned that the DHS shutdown comes after Democrats, condemning the deaths of two American citizens caused by ICE agents, have refused to pass the bill unless major reforms on ICE and CBP are put in place.