— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2026
He wrote:
I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) praised Musk’s offer and criticized his fellow Democrats for holding up DHS funding.
“This is incredibly generous. TSA agents across the country are relying on food pantries and community donations just to get by,” he wrote. “I remain the lone Dem to vote with my Republican colleagues to fully fund DHS and get people paid.”
This is incredibly generous.
TSA agents across the country are relying on food pantries and community donations just to get by.
I remain the lone Dem to vote with my Republican colleagues to fully fund DHS and get people paid.
It should never come to this point. https://t.co/MmUnAcdvIa
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2026
Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced it is willing to offer five changes to ICE and other DHS personnel in order to get enough Democrats to agree to vote with Republicans on TSA funding, per Politico:
The White House, in five points, said it was willing to codify a number of policy changes, including an expansion of the use of body cameras for federal immigration agents; the limit of enforcement in certain sensitive locations, including hospitals and schools; greater oversight of DHS detention facilities; the enforcement of visible officer identification and the adherence to existing law prohibiting the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens.
“We feel that this offer is serious — that it is a good faith attempt to continue to try to come to a reasonable and expeditious conclusion to the shutdown, which we are now seeing is becoming ever more disruptive on Americans’ travel plans, as well as the security mission at the department,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to describe the private talks.
Naturally, Democrats took the domestic terrorism route and rejected the White House’s offer because…well, it really doesn’t matter why. They were always gonna reject them.
The really bad news is that Musk’s offer likely won’t go anywhere. Executive Branch employees generally cannot accept salary supplements from private citizens for their government duties.
So, in reality, the only real long-term way to stop this madness from happening is to stop voting for the Domestic Terrorism Party.
