Transportation Security Administration employees were ordered to keep showing up to work by their billionaire boss—even as the partial government shutdown kept them from getting paid this weekend.
President Donald Trump, 79, called on TSA workers to report to work after they officially missed their first full paycheck on Friday as Democrats and Republicans remain deadlocked on funding the Department of Homeland Security, largely over immigration enforcement.
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump thanked TSA agents and Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Council 100, acknowledging that they are “going to work but not being paid.”
But that didn’t stop him from telling them to clock in anyway, while blaming “Radical Left Democrats” for the shutdown.
“They want your money to go to ‘Border Criminals, Murderers, foreign Drug Dealers, and some of the worst people on earth.’ They don’t want it to go to you,” he said of Democrats. “Keep fighting for the USA. GO TO WORK! I promise that I will never forget you!!!”
The DHS has been partially shut down for a month since its funding lapsed in February, resulting in tens of thousands of workers missing their first full paycheck.
Acting TSA administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers last month that around 95 percent of the agency’s employees—about 61,000—are deemed essential and must continue working amid the shutdown.
And that’s while they’re still reeling from last year’s 43-day shutdown, which was the longest in U.S. history.
“Many in our workforce were subject to late fees and penalties for missed bill payments, eviction notices, loss of long-term childcare arrangements, and more,” McNeill said. “We cannot put them through another such experience.”
TSA officers make an average salary of $35,000, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Jones said many of these employees lack stability.
“They don’t have the levers to pull to help them weather the storm, I’m afraid. I’m seeing desperation in the eyes of my coworkers,” he told CNN.
As TSA officers saw their first $0 paycheck on Friday, the New York Post reported that big bars of gold were seen being carted around the White House to commemorate the broadening economic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela after the Trump administration closed a licensing deal with Minerven, a Venezuelan state-owned gold mining company.
Later on Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is set to receive $10 billion for brokering the deal that will keep TikTok in the U.S.
