Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin attended his first Cabinet meeting Thursday, a gathering that comes at a crucial time as negotiations on Capitol Hill to fund his department are teetering on the edge of collapse.
President Donald Trump did not call on Mullin to deliver his own report during the meeting. Trump opened the meeting, however, by praising Mullin before addressing the prolonged DHS shutdown, which he described as the “disgraceful Democrat shutdown.”
“Congratulations,” Trump said to Mullin as the room erupted into laughter. “You came into a department that’s shut down. Shut down by the radical Democrats.”
Trump called on Democrats to end the shutdown, or else the administration would “have to take some very drastic measures.”
Negotiations in the Senate have hit a make-or-break moment after Democrats rejected a GOP proposal that would carve out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation operation while funding the rest of the department, including the Transportation Security Administration.
Long lines at airports across the country amid staffing shortages have put pressure on Congress to reach a deal. Since the start of the shutdown on Feb. 14, at least 458 TSA officers have quit, according to the DHS. On Monday, nearly 11% of TSA employees missed their scheduled shifts.
Acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified during a House hearing on Wednesday that the agency may have to shut down some airports if they did not receive funding soon, calling the prolonged budget lapse a “dire situation.”
“At this point, we have to look at all options on the table,” McNeill told lawmakers. “And that does require us to, at some point, make very difficult choices as to which airports we might try to keep open and which ones we might have to shut down as our callout rates increase.”
To help alleviate pressure on TSA employees who have been working without pay since the shutdown started in February, Trump sent ICE officers to help with airport security starting on Monday.
DHS: 100,000 EMPLOYEES UNPAID AMID SHUTDOWN
Mullin was sworn in as the ninth Homeland Security secretary on Tuesday, replacing Kristi Noem, who was removed from her post by Trump after controversy over her handling of deportation operations in Minneapolis and an expensive TV ad blitz.
Mullin was confirmed by the Senate in a 54-45 vote on Monday night.