Gov. Ron DeSantis is responding to the ongoing lack of pay for Transportation Security Administration amid a Congressional funding dispute over the Department of Homeland Security.
But while many Republicans, including Senators Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, say that the problem would be solved when Democrats accede to funding DHS, DeSantis believes the agency should actually be privately funded, and that there is little evidence that it’s even effective or needed to keep airports and planes safe.
“Is there evidence that creating TSA has made air travel safer over the past 25 years? If not, then why not let the airlines and airports handle it? Why give politicians the power to play games with the travel of our people?”
Conservative media has spotlighted long security lines at airports as the impasse continues. But the Florida Governor’s issue is structural, not situational.
This isn’t the first time DeSantis has expressed qualms about the post 9/11 change to air travel. Speaking in New Hampshire back in 2024, he described bringing home a bottle of water from the Sea of Galilee for one of his children’s baptisms and said that while Israeli security let it through, TSA would have tossed it.
“They’ll have a grandmother take off her shoes and they do all this stuff … and then any time Special Forces runs exercises, they get through every single time,” DeSantis added. “So it’s like, wait a minute, why do we have this big bureaucracy that’s not actually adding to security where you could do it at a much lighter footprint by just recognizing that some people clearly are not going to be threats.”
On Saturday, DeSantis also weighed in on Elon Musk volunteering to pay the salaries of TSA agents, saying travelers will “appreciate this if it comes to fruition.”
