Terror attacks struck West Bloomfield, Michigan, and Norfolk, Virginia. CEOs of every major airline and cargo carrier fired off a letter to Congress demanding an end to the partial government shutdown.
TSA agents, Coast Guard members, and FEMA workers have gone weeks without paychecks. And on Sunday morning, two of the Senate's most prominent Democrats went on national television to explain why none of this is their fault.
Sens. Adam Schiff and Cory Booker faced pointed questions on NBC and CNN about whether Democrats should vote to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which has been partially shuttered since Feb. 14, Fox News reported. Both deflected. Both blamed Republicans. Neither budged.
NBC’s Kristen Welker framed the moment in stark terms on “Meet the Press,” pointing to reported “terror attacks” and a private-sector plea for action.
Welker said: “We saw terror attacks in West Bloomfield, Michigan, in Norfolk, Virginia. This morning, the CEOs of the nation's major airlines and cargo carriers have written a letter to Congress calling for them to end the shutdown, talking about the importance of American security in the airways.”
Then she put the accountability question directly to Schiff: “Is it responsible for Democrats to hold up DHS funding with the threat of terror attacks looming during this conflict?”
Schiff’s response did not concede an inch. He argued Democrats repeatedly tried to reopen DHS agencies, but only on terms that carved ICE out of the funding.
Schiff said:
“We offered vote after vote, resolution after resolution—even as recently as this week—to reopen those agencies, to fund them, and the Republicans voted it down. We said, 'Let's wall off ICE funding, let's fund these other agencies that protect the country,' and the Republicans, one after another, voted them down. Voted down funding TSA, voted down funding the Coast Guard, voted down funding FEMA. So, Republicans are controlling both houses and the presidency; they can't very well blame the minority party for their own inability to govern, particularly when they're voting down Democratic motions to reopen these agencies.”
That is the Democratic posture in one long breath: they want to be seen as guardians of public safety, but only after Congress cordons off immigration enforcement like it is contraband.
It is also a revealing tell about priorities. In a shutdown that touches national security functions, the fight they choose to spotlight is not whether DHS should be funded, but which DHS mission gets treated as politically untouchable.
On CNN, Jake Tapper asked Booker the question more bluntly: “Isn't it time for Democrats to reopen and refund DHS?”
Booker answered by blaming Republicans and reciting the same agency list, with a not-so-subtle message that immigration enforcement is where he draws the line.
Booker said, “Democrats have tried multiple times to try to get TSA, CISA, and the Coast Guard funded. Republicans have refused, time and time and time again, to fund,”
He also characterized Republican actions as “reckless things,”
Then Booker made his condition explicit: “I will not approve another dollar for ICE, given all that they're doing. But we should be funding those TSA agents that keep us safe, CISA, Coast Guard, and for Republicans to refuse to do it is unacceptable.”
Democrats want to slice DHS into “good” agencies and “bad” agencies, then claim the moral high ground for funding the ones that are easiest to applaud on cable news.
The problem is that DHS is not a social media content strategy. It is a department with connected missions, and the public lives with the consequences when politicians try to turn core functions into bargaining chips.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Tapper and urged Republicans to accept Democratic terms that would fund most of DHS while setting aside immigration enforcement for later negotiations.
Buttigieg said, “I think Republicans should stop blocking the Democratic proposals to fund all of DHS, including TSA and other parts, except for the parts that should be negotiated over, which are ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse signaled the same stance last week, saying Democrats were “totally ready to fund FEMA, TSA, Coast Guard, other elements.”
Whitehouse also alleged ICE was continuing to “misbehave.”
This is the through-line. Not a debate about whether to secure the country, but a coordinated insistence that immigration enforcement is the one part of homeland security that must be isolated, restrained, and treated as suspect.
Sen. John Cornyn scoffed at the Democratic approach and argued it amounts to political theater that punishes ordinary Americans trying to travel.
Cornyn said, “That’s extremely hypocritical because we’ve already funded ICE.”
He tied that claim to previous legislation, saying ICE “had already received allocations through Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill last year.”
Cornyn then aimed at the practical fallout: “So, the only thing they’re doing is hurting the air-traveling public through TSA. They’re hurting them and not accomplishing what they’re saying they’re trying to accomplish. It’s shameful,”
That is the core indictment: Democrats are demanding concessions on immigration enforcement in a shutdown context, while the immediate pain lands elsewhere, especially on TSA and the traveling public.
The shutdown began on Feb. 14, and it has left workers without paychecks for weeks.
In the middle of that, Democrats are trying to reframe the argument as if they are simply asking to fund “security” while Republicans refuse. But the quotes tell a more exact story: Democrats are openly conditioning DHS funding on carving out ICE and, as Buttigieg put it, Customs and Border Patrol for separate negotiation.
If leaders in Washington want to restore public confidence, they could start by leveling with the country: this is not just about reopening agencies. It is about whether immigration enforcement is treated as a legitimate function of government, or as a program to be strangled whenever Democrats have leverage.
In a moment when Americans are being reminded of vulnerabilities in aviation and public safety, that is a choice with consequences.