TSA lines at airports add pressure on lawmakers to end DHS shutdown
Source: The Hill News · Bias: Center
Summary
Growing security lines at airports around the country are putting pressure on both White House and Senate Democratic negotiators to reach a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which saw its funding lapse nearly a month ago. Senate sources familiar with the negotiation say there’s been some progress behind the scenes, though…
TSA lines at airports add pressure on lawmakers to end DHS shutdown
Center
Growing security lines at airports around the country are putting pressure on both White House and Senate Democratic negotiators to reach a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which saw its funding lapse nearly a month ago. Senate sources familiar with the negotiation say there’s been some progress behind the scenes, though…
On Friday, a prominent MAGA journalist called it: “The State Fair debacle is the end of @realDonaldTrump as a cultural force.”Alex Berenson – a veteran journalist who gained MAGA fame for his vocal COVID denial and voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 – posted this declaration to social media along with a photo of an almost completely empty National State Fair, at the center of which stood a mini mockup of the Commander in Chief’s crumbling triumphal arch. “Trump has always been uncool in a cool way,” Berenson continued. “He’s so in love with himself and his own awful taste you appreciate him even if you hate him. But this is just a box-office bomb, and it makes him look so old.”His dismal assessment comes amid rampant reports of the fair’s many disappointments. The event – much touted by Trump in the weeks preceding it – has been characterized by thin to nonexistent crowds, prompting the crowd-size-obsessed president to fly into a rage and fret that no one will show up to his 4th of July rally. His own supporters have called it “really disappointing,” “unnecessarily vanilla,” and “like a silent protest.” Even Fox News ditched the affair after wasting too much airtime on “live shots of empty grass.”The National State Fair is part of the wider celebrations marking the United States’ 250th birthday, which have been plagued by controversy, scandal, and failure for months. In May, the fair concert series fell apart within hours of its lineup announcement as musicians quit, saying they’d been misled about the event’s pro-Trump connotations. Somewhere along the way, Trump decided the Reflecting Pool needed to be painted, and that debacle spun out into Algaegate. This and other projects have been riddled with accusations of no-bid contracts and shady dealings. Berenson’s assertion that the end of Trump is nigh comes as the MAGA movement descends into “civil war.” The president has lost some of his most important political and media allies, like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The ‘Relectant Right’ who played a key role in his 2024 election have soured. And even the white working-class voters who are his most loyal support base have drifted away. Overall, Trump’s approval ratings have plunged to historic lows, increasing to just 37 percent in recent days.
The Supreme Court's decision to allow the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for many Haitian migrants has triggered serious outrage from the left — and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but notice the glaring issues in leftist logic.“Now, seems like it would be kind of common sense. It’s in the name. It’s the T in TPS. Temporary. Temporary. There is an actual definition of the word 'temporary.' It means 'not forever,'” Gonzales says, pointing out that they were supposed to have this status for months, but instead they have had it for nearly two decades.“Democrats, Haitians, anyone who has the liberal brain rot — they're losing their entitled little minds about it,” she adds.Founder and CEO of the Immigrant Family Services Institute Dr. Geralde Gabeau yelled to crowd cheers, “This is the time for all of us to raise our voices and to say this country is also our country, is also the country of our immigrant because we are the one who built it.”“I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to ask you for your receipts, ma’am,” Gonzales comments.“'Haitians built this country' is the argument that they made,” she adds.However, celebrities have historically made their home sound like a place no one should want to leave, as Susan Sarandon, Conan O’Brien, and even Bill Maher all have donned shirts that read “Haiti is great already.”“They were pretending like it was just this wonderful, beautiful country; it’s not a third-world s**t-hole,” Gonzales comments. “And now all of a sudden, they’re back to like, ‘No, no, you can’t send them back. No, don’t do that. It’s too big of a s**t-hole.’”And CNN’s Jake Tapper is among those pleading.“I heard Stephen Miller, who’s driving a lot of this, say that Haiti is safe for Haitians, and I just looked at the State Department’s website, and they have a level four 'do not travel' advisory for Haiti just from a few months ago,” Tapper said on CNN.“Crimes include robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. That doesn’t sound safe to me,” Tapper added.“'Do not travel' is not for Haitians. That’s 'do not travel' for the United States. That advisory is to American citizens traveling to Haiti, not Haitians going back home,” Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told Tapper.“I understand that, but based on everything I’ve read, including the U.N. and Human Rights Watch, it doesn’t sound safe for Haitians. More than 8,100 killings documented last year. Those weren’t Americans. Haiti is among the top five countries with the highest rates of rape and sexual abuse, with more than 1,200 cases of sexual violence last year,” Tapper replied.“So Haitians are making Haiti unsafe, and somehow we are expected to import them. These are criminals,” Gonzales comments.“Why would it be our duty to import anyone from any unsafe country in the world?” she asks. “The obvious conclusion is you are only going to make our country less safe.”Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
As food, fireworks and festivities kick off in celebration of Independence Day 2026, frequent flyers in and around the Big Apple are likely to face nixed or postponed takeoffs.
A legal expert shared a sobering warning on Thursday about President Donald Trump's continued efforts to dismantle birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court rebuffed his latest attempt. Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, told Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of "The Intersection" podcast, on a recent episode that the Trump administration's birthright citizenship case was "just the tip of the spear." Last year, the administration signed an executive order stripping birthright citizenship from people who are born in the country but whose parents are here illegally. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that the executive order was unconstitutional. Wofsy warned during the interview that the Supreme Court's decision is not the end of the road for the Trump administration's efforts. "What cases like the Birthright decision show is that we can keep fighting and we can win these fights," Wofsy said. "There are battles so fundamental and central to who we are as a country that we can overcome.""I hope that gives some hope to those who may be feeling a little hopeless in this moment, but I also don't want to at all undercut that this is an incredibly frightening and demoralizing time for so many people in our communities," he continued. "This is an example of our allies, our communities, the American people, who stood up and said no to this idea of rewriting a fundamental constitutional guarantee, and we held the line in this case," he added. "It's an example of why we have to keep fighting, but it is by far not the end of the fight."
