WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is now demanding Congress overhaul election procedures as part of any bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, a request that could make it even harder for lawmakers to reach a bipartisan deal to end a growing crisis at the nation’s airports.
If Congress doesn’t pass a bill funding DHS, which includes the Transportation Security Administration, wait times at airports are going to keep getting worse. More than 3,400 TSA agents called out of work sick in one day amid the standoff, leading to long security lines at airports and frustration for many travelers.
Trump’s insistence on passing the SAVE America Act, which grows out of his long-standing false belief that he won the 2020 presidential election, is now both blocking the GOP from ending the DHS shutdown without giving Democrats a win and stopping the nation’s airports from returning to normal.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) flatly told reporters on Monday the president’s new demand is not realistic, reiterating it does not have sufficient support within the Senate.
Thune has spent the past several weeks explaining that despite Trump’s demand that Congress pass the SAVE America Act, a bill to require proof-of-citizenship for voter registration and photo ID at the polls, there just aren’t enough senators willing to vote yes on the bill or gut the filibuster to get it to Trump’s desk.
