Trump Blasts Democrats Like Chuck Schumer As He Vows To 'Immediately' Pay TSA Agents To Fix Emergency: Airline Stocks Spike Overnight

President Donald Trump said Thursday he will sign an order directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents, escalating White House intervention in a funding standoff that has snarled airport security lines during the spring break rush.

Trump Moves To Restore TSA Pay

Trump said the move was meant to restore pay and calm what he described as mounting airport disorder as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown stretched into its sixth week.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said he would sign an executive order to restore TSA workers' pay and end the "chaos" at airports. "I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports," he wrote.

His post came after The Washington Post reported Thursday that the White House had begun weighing unilateral action to pay TSA officers if Senate Democrats and Republicans could not quickly break the impasse over the DHS budget.

The president took a shot at Senate minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in his post, saying they had made it ‘very clear where they stand, ‘ and it was not on the side of the American people.

Senate Standoff Blocks DHS Funding Deal

Republicans and Democrats have each rejected the other side's latest proposals, leaving the shutdown unresolved after 41 days. Democrats on Wednesday sent what they called a proposal with "common-sense guardrails" on federal immigration agents, a demand they have tied to any broader deal, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) immediately dismissed it as unacceptable.

Republicans, led by Thune and backed by senators including John Kennedy (R-La.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), floated an off-ramp that would fund TSA, the Coast Guard and other DHS operations while excluding ICE enforcement. Trump rejected that approach, insisting there would be "no deals with the Democrats" unless funding aligned with his SAVE America Act.

Airport Delays Worsen As Workers Struggle

Shortly after, Trump ordered ICE officers to major airports earlier this week to assist with crowd control and ID checks, but the deployment has done little to ease delays. The acting head of TSA, Ha Nguyen McNeill, told a House committee that checkpoints were seeing "the highest wait times in history," and said absences had climbed above 40% at some airports since the shutdown began.

The financial toll on TSA workers has deepened as nearly 500 officers have quit and more than 3,000 scheduled employees missed work Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. McNeill said some workers were sleeping in cars, selling plasma and missing rent and child care payments while being expected to keep airports secure.

Price Action: Shares of all major airlines including Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE:DAL), United Airlines Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:UAL) and American Airlines Group Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL) all edged higher in after-hours trading, while the U.S. Global Jets ETF (NYSE:JETS), a popular gauge of airline equities, climbed 1.08% to 25.28, at the time of writing.

Image via Shutterstock/ Joshua Sukoff