Bryan Tyler Cohen – Voenix Rising

What’s Going On

As Trump continues to flail in the aftermath of his disastrous handling of the economy, the Epstein files, and now a new war in the Middle East, he took to Truth Social with a pretty unhinged threat:

If Democrats don’t agree to his demands, he’s going to send ICE agents into airports to handle security and start making arrests.

So if airport security already feels chaotic right now, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Here’s What They’re Doing

Democrats have put forward multiple standalone bills to fund TSA (and FEMA and the Coast Guard), which Republicans have blocked six times as of March 20.

They want DHS fully funded: no concessions, no conditions, no accountability. Now, Democrats are absolutely open to funding the department, but with some basic guardrails: no masks, ICE agents must identify themselves, requiring judicial warrants to enter private property, and stay away from polling places.

You know, baseline following the law. All of which is completely reasonable. Republicans keep rejecting this anyway. So, instead of funding TSA and ending this immediately, they’re making the conscious decision to hold up funding and use the chaos as leverage.

Why it Matters Right Now

This workaround isn’t going to fix the problem. Sending untrained ICE agents in to triage long security lines packed with travelers on edge is not setting them up for success. Now we have ICE playing the role of TSA at US airports. Moving on from their previous role as “law enforcement” in American cities. We all saw how that went. What could possibly go wrong this time?

Spin vs. Reality

They’re saying: Democrats are causing the chaos at airports.
What’s actually happening: Republicans are blocking standalone TSA funding and tying it to unrelated DHS demands.

They’re saying: This is about making airports “safe again.”
What’s actually happening: They’re proposing to replace TSA agents with ICE agents, who aren’t trained to perform security screenings (let alone anything else).

They’re saying: Democrats won’t negotiate.
What’s actually happening: Democrats agreed to fund DHS with basic guardrails. Democrats put forth multiple clean bills to fund TSA. Republicans rejected all of it.

Who Loses

It’s the travelers stuck in endless security lines at the peak of Spring Break travel. It’s exhausted TSA agents forced to work without pay, doing double duty as more and more employees, understandably, call out of work. It’s the airlines forced to hold flights, leading to a domino effect that will cause delays across the country. And it’s travelers coming into the country whose first interaction will now be with the same trigger-happy losers whose actions have scared off tourists and now threaten the upcoming World Cup. (Which the already decimated tourism industry is counting on for a much needed boost.)

In the DHS funding standoff, TSA is the main pain point. It’s the one arm of the department that most regular people interact with most often. As the wait times at security get longer, and lines snake out onto the sidewalk, it’s regular Americans who are feeling the pain here.

The Pattern Here

We have the complete breakdown of an apolitical agency that performs a basic function for everyone. And we have one party using America’s headache for leverage.

The Republicans are once again holding American’s basic needs hostage in order to extract some completely unrealistic concessions from Democrats. Before it was healthcare, this time it’s the TSA (and FEMA, and the Coast Guard, so you’d better hope there’s no natural disasters or maritime… “excursions” before this is over.) How will they inconvenience us next for political gain?

Bottom Line

This could all be over tomorrow. Congress could fund TSA, agents would get their paychecks and return to work. Delays would disappear. Democrats want to do it. It’s Republicans who refuse to offer a single compromise.

I understand the inclination to believe that Trump is acting erratically when he seemingly arbitrarily bombs Iran. But this is the culmination of a long-term plan for which the chief beneficiary is, unsurprisingly, himself. You don’t have to look far for clues, either.

This morning, while the bombing was underway, Trump wrote:

Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.

Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t care about foreign countries meddling in our elections. If he did, he’d be bombing Russia right now. So why then would Trump invoke Iran interfering in our elections as he bombs the country? Put simply, he is trying to validate the claim that our elections are not secure, so that he can use that as a pretext to usurp control of our elections in the name of national security.

Here’s an excerpt from The Washington Post’s reporting from just days ago:

Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.

I do have one gripe with this framing: declaring a national emergency would not “unlock” extraordinary presidential power over voting. There is noextraordinary presidential power over voting. The states control elections, not the federal government. Full stop.

But that poor framing notwithstanding, Trump is very clearly looking for claims of foreign interference (first China, now Iran) to serve as a basis to declare a national emergency. He has threatened to nationalize the election for months. This is how he’s going to try and do it.

Add this to his apparent obsession with passing the SAVE Act, which in part gives the federal government access to the voter rolls (and if you’re looking to suppress the vote, it helps to know whose vote to suppress).

And of course, Trump has a long, sordid past when it comes to steps he’s already taken to undermine the sanctity of our elections. He tried to seize the voting machines in Georgia in 2020. He tried to get Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 nonexistent votes. This year, he sent his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to Fulton County to collect all of the ballots. He’s sending troops into US cities who can serve as his boots on the ground in the event that he hands down orders. He’s put in place an attorney general who herself is an election denier. History shows that Trump is not shy about using any pretext necessary to interfere in a free and fair election in the United States.

There is a silver lining. Because he is so ham-handed, his scheme is already apparent. I’ve spoken with Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, who can see the writing on the wall. If and when Trump asserts his nonexistent authority, he will be sued. And he will lose. But our job is to spread the word, because the more Americans recognize the real reason for his actions, the less effective this pretext will be when he attempts to use it.

Category: Bryan Tyler Cohen