Trump directs DHS chief to pay TSA agents as talks to end shutdown break down

By Ted Barrett, Morgan Rimmer, Sarah Ferris, Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump directed his newly installed Department of Homeland Security chief to swiftly pay Transportation Security Administration agents in a bid to reduce long lines at airports, as talks to fund the department collapsed on Capitol Hill.

“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

A bipartisan group of top senators had made a furious push to come to an agreement, but in a sign the talks had become mired in stalemate, the president said Thursday evening he was ordering the payment.

Trump plans to pay TSA workers using funding from the sweeping legislation he signed last year known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” according to two people familiar with the plans. But his senior aides are still working to finalize how to pay the TSA workers on the verge of missing their second full paycheck and things could change, one person cautioned.

The standoff over funding for DHS has withheld pay for thousands of TSA agents and other DHS workers, causing major travel delays and scores of missed flights nationwide.

“My question is if he can do it, why didn’t he do it before?” Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that focuses on improving the federal government, said of Trump’s directive. “This has been a problem for over a month now.”

Frustration on Capitol Hill hit new levels this week as GOP leaders pushed hard to end the impasse by Thursday night, given that senators have an upcoming two-week Easter and Passover recess scheduled.

GOP leadership held open a vote related to funding the department on the Senate floor for hours as senators attempted to find an agreement. The current round of talks, GOP leaders had warned, was Republicans’ “last and final” offer for Democrats to make a deal after nearly six weeks of stalled negotiations.

“We’ve had the vote open for five hours to give the Democrats an opportunity to come to the table. They have not, and now time is up,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the majority whip, said as the talks fell apart. The vote ultimately failed.

He added: “You’re going to see that we’ve had enough of the Democrats who have been delaying and continuing to stand by the side of illegal immigrant criminals, rather than the safety and the security of the American people.”

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz pushed back on the claim from Republicans that his party was not at the negotiating table, but he would not discuss substance of the disagreement.

“I will just say that we have been talking all day. Staff has been talking all day on the floor, via text, in person. So it’s just not true that we’re not in a negotiation. It may be that that one person or the other has lost patience, and you know that would be too bad, but we’re still talking,” he said.

Sen. Chris Murphy said he hopes that Republicans don’t “decide to walk away” from the funding negotiations.

“We’ve been actively talking all day, trading offers all day, and there’s an active negotiation going on. I hope they don’t unilaterally decide to walk away, but that’s their decision. They ultimately take orders from a higher power,” the Connecticut Democratic senator said.

At least some Democrats had been feeling positive about the latest GOP counteroffer – which would fund the vast majority of DHS but exclude new money for ICE enforcement and removal operations – but as of Thursday afternoon were seeking clarification on language, including how to ensure money for Customs and Border Protection and other parts of DHS can’t be used for such operations, according to multiple people familiar with the talks. Another source said the offer included at least some provisions to rein in ICE, such as body-worn cameras.

Multiple sources involved in the talks, however, also acknowledged that things could go south quickly, especially if Trump were to weigh in unfavorably at the last minute.

Mullin had been on Capitol Hill earlier in the day to meet with senators amid the ongoing funding negotiations, a source told CNN.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters earlier on Thursday that Democrats, “have the text in front of them. But it’s important that we try and close this down and get it done today.”

Republicans, Thune said, had made what he called their “last and final” offer to Democrats. “The Dems are now in possession of what I think is our last and final. So let’s hope this gets it done,” he said.

Even if the Senate reached an agreement, the House would still need to pass any deal that emerges from the Senate, which could result in its own headache for Trump and GOP leaders.

At the start of the week, Senate Republicans projected confidence that they had a new plan that would end the stalemate. They proposed funding DHS except for a small portion of the immigration enforcement budget, in a concession to Democrats. And they planned to try to pass a party-line bill to fund the rest of ICE later. But the plan ran into resistance from Senate Democrats, who continued to demand more changes to ICE tactics and practices.

Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters said earlier in the day that he’d been involved in “productive” funding talks, even as he stopped short of saying there had been meaningful movement.

The goal of the talks, Peters said, would be to get widespread support in the Democratic caucus, not just peel off a handful to get it passed.

“Hopefully we’d get widespread support. That would be the goal,” he said.

More than 46,000 TSA officers are on the verge of missing their second full paycheck this weekend. They, along with other TSA employees, have been working without pay since DHS funding lapsed on February 14, prompting a partial government shutdown.

Nearly 500 TSA officers have quit during the shutdown and thousands of others are calling out, which has caused travelers to endure hourslong waits to go through security at multiple airports nationwide.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Tami Luhby, Annie Grayer, Alison Main, Aileen Graef and Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.