Ex-Obama DHS Chief Says Shutdown ‘Madness’ From Both Parties Could ‘Break The Back’ Of TSA Permanently

A former Obama administration official warned Thursday that the government shutdown could “break the back of aviation security” in the United States.

Democrats have filibustered funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over operations by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), demanding new restrictions on the agency after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in January in Minneapolis during demonstrations opposing federal immigration enforcement operations. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that with Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers resigning, airport lines would grow longer.

“So what I’m going to say here is a nonpartisan statement, not directed at Democrats or Republicans, directed at both in Congress. In my judgment what is happening right now is sheer madness,” Johnson said. “We are in a heightened threat environment because we have gone to war — and that’s what it is, a war, it’s not an operation — we’ve gone to war against the government of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. Yet the government — the department of our government that is there to protect the American people is defunded right now and has been defunded for the last month and a half.”

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