Republican Governance in This Era

March 27, 2026.

The ongoing battle over funding transportation security administration, or TSA, agents

at U.S. airports, gives a detailed view of Republican governance in this era.

Republicans hold a majority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

They also hold the White House.

On paper, this control makes it look as if Republicans should be able to put anything

they want into law.

But the reality is that the extremism of President Donald J. Trump and the MAGA Republicans

is so unpopular that those clinging to it are making it impossible for the Republicans

to govern.

The fight over TSA funding is a case study of this dynamic.

In Congress past, the appropriations bills necessary to fund the U.S. government for

2026, Republicans in the House passed funding for the Department of Homeland Security with

a simple majority vote and sent the measure off to the Senate.

But in the Senate, the minority can stop a measure from coming up for a vote unless

60 members agree to move it forward.

With this leverage provided by the so-called filibuster, Democrats refused to give more

money to immigration and customs enforcement or ICE and customs and border protection,

CBP, the parent agency for Border Patrol.

Border Patrol is the law enforcement agency of CBP that has been in the news as its agents

assault undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

Like in July 2025, when they passed the Budget Reconciliation Law, they called the One Big

Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans provided $170.7 billion in additional funding for immigration

and border enforcement activities by DHS, as well as for the presence of soldiers with

the Defense Department on the border.

That money included $29.9 billion for ICE, with funding for an additional 10,000 officers.

The law gave ICE a lot of leeway in spending that money.

The law also included $7.8 billion for CBP, with funds to hire 3,000 new Border Patrol

agents.

With White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller directing immigration policy alongside

then Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome and her associate Corey Lewandowski, ICE

and Border Patrol agents terrorized people in American cities.

Their regime eventually led to the shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota,

Renee Good and Alex Prety.

Daniel Lippman of Politico reported today that the stress of his job, including dealing

with Miller's tirades, has led the acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons, to be hospitalized

at least twice in the past seven months.

As the White House pushed ever-increasing numbers of arrests and as videos circulated

of ICE and Border Patrol agents beating individuals up, Americans turned against Trump's

handling of immigration.

A survey out yesterday from the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, a nonprofit

nonpartisan organization researching popular opinion on topics that touch the intersection

of religion, culture and politics, showed that just 35 percent of Americans approve of

Trump's handling of immigration, while 61 percent disapprove.

An even lower number, 33 percent, hold favorable views of ICE officers, while 67 percent

like their local police officers.

57 percent of Americans think sending ICE officers to places like Minnesota is making

those places less safe, while only 38 percent disagree, and only 36 percent of Americans

want Congress to give ICE more money.

Although 76 percent of Republicans favor increased funding for ICE.

Public opposition to more funding for ICE and Border Patrol, without significant changes

to their behavior, has put Democratic senators on solid ground to oppose funding all of

DHS without a promise of those changes.

In the wake of the murder of Alex Prety and Renee Good, Democrats made it clear no blank

check for ICE and Border Patrol.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York, explained.

Senate Democrats repeatedly tried to pass a measure to fund all of DHS except ICE and Border

Patrol, which were already funded with that huge pot of money under the Budget Reconciliation

Bill of last July.

But Republicans under pressure from Trump repeatedly voted down the Democrats' attempt to

fund the rest of DHS, including TSA, without funding for ICE and CBP.

Instead, demanding Democrats pass the package the House had, the one with full funding

for DHS, including for ICE and CBP.

Then on Sunday, Trump demanded the Senate add to the funding plan, the so-called Safeguard

American Voter Eligibility, or Save America Act, a bill that would require people to

show not just ID, but also proof of citizenship to register to vote and to vote, and would

severely restrict mail-in voting.

It would also require states to hand over their voting lists to the federal government,

for processing through a government database used to screen for non-citizens applying

for federal programs, confusingly also called the save system, although it stands for

systematic alien verification for entitlements.

Even though that procedure has a rate of false positives as high as 14%.

The Brennan Center estimates that the Save America Act would kick at least 21 million

Americans off voting lists.

To that legislation, Trump has also added provisions targeting transgender Americans,

apparently to appeal to his faltering base and pressure Republican senators to vote in

favor of the measure.

In order to get his wish list, Trump has called for Senate Majority Leader John Thune,

a Republican of South Dakota, to get rid of the filibuster, enabling Senate Republicans

to push through whatever they want without any Democratic votes, as the Republican majority

and the House can do.

Yesterday, Trump posted, when is enough enough for our Republican senators?

There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something

which the lunatic Democrats will do on day one if they ever get the chance.

Terminate the filibuster and get our airports and everything else moving again.

Also, add the complete, all five items Save America Act items.

Go for the gold, President DJT.

Meanwhile, some TSA agents, unpaid for over a month, began to quit.

Others called in sick, and lines in airports began to grow longer and slower.

So, apparently on a whim, designed to pressure Democrats, Trump sent ICE agents into 14

airports in 11 cities, where without training to do security checks, they did little to relieve

congestion.

The contrast of seeing ICE agents standing around collecting paychecks, while TSA agents

were working without them, ended up pressuring Trump rather than the Democrats.

Then, yesterday, Trump suddenly announced he would sign an emergency order to pay TSA

agents, suggesting he could have done so all along, although it is not clear where the

money will be coming from, or whether moving money in the way he suggests is even legal.

As soon as Trump said it would be okay to pay TSA agents, Senate Republicans agreed to pass

the measure that was essentially what the Democrats called for.

Remember, only 36% of Americans want Congress to give ICE more money.

At 2 o'clock this morning, the unanimously passed a measure that funds every part of DHS,

including TSA agents, but does not give more money to ICE and Border Patrol until Democrats

and Republicans agree on reforms, although Thune vowed that he would see to it that Democrats

don't get the reforms they want.

The Senate passed the measure and left for a two week break, sending their bill to the

House, which could have passed it and then gone home.

But as Representative Sean Caston, a Democrat of Illinois, explained, members of the far-right

Freedom Caucus took a stand against the bill, apparently because they want more money

for ICE and Border Patrol, want the Save Act, and want Trump's approval.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, could ignore them and pass the measure

with the votes of all the Democrats and most Republicans.

But Johnson depends on the far-right to maintain his speakership, so he says he will refuse

to pass the Senate's measure and instead get the House to pass a 60-day continuing resolution

to fund DHS at its current levels.

But the Senate fight has shown that Thune does not have the votes to fund ICE and Border

Patrol without reforms.

Schumer has said a continuing resolution would be dead on arrival, and right now the Senate

is on break, meaning TSA agents are facing two more weeks without paychecks.

Olivia Beaver's of the Wall Street Journal reported that when a Representative asked Johnson

if the Senate had agreed to come back to deal with a new measure from the House, Johnson

answered, the Senate went dark and did not communicate with us.

It's so maddening, cast and wrote on social media, government workers should be paid.

You shouldn't have to wait on lines in airports or worry about Coast Guard preparedness or

whether FEMA can handle the next disaster.

But you do because of the utter lack of character in Republican leadership.

What the hell are you guys doing?

Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat of Massachusetts, asked Republicans on the floor of the House.

Everyone knows the bill could pass with a large majority if Johnson would bring it to a vote,

he said.

Freedom caucus members don't care about governing, he said.

They only care about writing another blank check for ICE or getting a shout out on some

bad crazy right wing podcast.

And so TSA agents will not get paid unless Trump's executive order goes into effect, taking

the power to appropriate funds, a power that the U.S. Constitution gives to Congress alone

and handing it to the president.

For years, the far right has insisted that it and only it knows how to govern because

its ideology is the only legitimate way to look at the world.

The fight over funding for TSA illustrates on a micro level how lawmakers who ignore the

real world to cleave to an ideology strengthen authoritarianism.

But these days, the dangers of clinging to the far right ideology are around us at the

macro level as well.

We are almost four weeks into a war with Iran, started without input from Congress by a

president who is now contemplating sending soldiers to fight in a conflict he is eager

to put into the rear view mirror.

Trump is getting a little bored with Iran, a senior White House official told Jake trailer

of MS now.

Not that he regrets it or something, he's just bored and wants to move on.

As the strangling of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices skyrocketing though, the global

economy is not moving on.

Today, another dramatic drop in the stock market put the Dow Jones industrial average down

more than 10% since February and the NASDAQ 100 down more than 10%.

While the S&P 500 is shaping up to have its worst month since 2022.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead and Massachusetts, recorded with music

composed by Michael Moss.