MAGA Senator Exposes How Trump Killed Deal to End Shutdown on Fox News
A Republican senator publicly says Trump blocked a bipartisan path to reopen most of DHS and pay TSA workers, undermining GOP claims that Democrats alone are responsible for the shutdown impasse.
Mar 24, 2026
Sources
Summary
Sen. John Kennedy said on Fox News that a Cruz-Kennedy plan to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security and pay TSA workers quickly was rejected by President Trump. The story frames that rejection as a deliberate “no deals with Democrats” choice while Republicans continued publicly blaming Democrats for the stalemate. It matters because the shutdown’s consequences—missed TSA paychecks, rising absences, and airport disruptions—are being driven as much by internal GOP strategy and Trump’s demands as by any single-party “refusal to negotiate.”
Reality Check
The key stabilizing fact is that there appears to have been an actionable, narrow path to reopen most of DHS and resume TSA pay that a Republican senator says Trump personally vetoed—so “Democrats shut it down” is, at best, incomplete.
Separately, multiple outlets have reported that TSA absentee rates and airport disruption have worsened as the shutdown continues, adding operational pressure regardless of which side wins the messaging fight.
The unresolved policy dispute is not “DHS funding” in the abstract; it’s specifically whether ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations gets funded as part of the reopening package and whether unrelated priorities (like the SAVE Act) are being used as leverage.
Detail
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Fox News’ The Will Cain Show that he and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) developed a two-step plan to end the DHS shutdown.
Kennedy described the plan as: accept Democrats’ offer to reopen most of DHS, then pursue ICE funding separately through budget reconciliation (avoiding the 60-vote threshold).
Kennedy said Trump rejected the approach with a “no deals with the Democrats” directive and claimed TSA could have been paid by the end of the week under the plan.
The Daily Beast report says Senate Majority Leader John Thune previously brought a similar “everything but ICE” proposal to Trump, which Trump also rejected.
The article reports Trump tied a DHS deal to passage of the SAVE Act/SAVE America Act (proof-of-citizenship voting bill), despite it lacking a clear 60-vote path in the Senate.
Reuters reporting cited in the article: on Sunday, more than 3,450 TSA officers (nearly 12% of the workforce) did not show up for work, and more than 400 TSA workers have quit since the shutdown began in mid-February.
Airport operational impacts cited include Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson advising passengers to arrive four hours early and airport leaders warning Congress of escalating disruptions.
By late Monday, senators were reportedly back at the White House trying to salvage a framework that funds most of DHS (including TSA) while excluding ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations; some DHS components like CBP and HSI would remain funded with added guardrails.
The White House response quoted in the article did not address Kennedy’s account and instead blamed Democrats for “recklessly” shutting down DHS and forcing TSA employees to work without pay.