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What about that DHS funding bill that doesn't include funding for ICE? That is not my preference. I can tell you the House has funded DHS twice. We're prepared to do it again, completely fund the entire department. That is the responsible way to do this thing. So we've been very resistant to any idea to break it apart. So do you agree with the speaker? Yeah, the speaker is right. I was with TSA agents this morning at LaGuardia Airport as I flew into Washington here. The speaker is right. We shouldn't separate these issues. The continuing resolution-- status quo funding for those at home-- is the medicine that Washington has taken for years and years and years when Democrats and Republicans can't agree on something specific. Now, Democrats don't want any border enforcement. They don't want any immigration enforcement. That's their prerogative as a party, but they shouldn't be able to hold up all sorts of funding in order to try to exercise that prerogative. It's wrong. The speaker's right to focus us all on funding the entire Department of Homeland Security. And where we disagree, let's at least just do status quo funding on things like ICE to ensure that our folks are getting paid not only in ICE but DHS, cybersecurity, the Coast Guard, the entire Department of Homeland Security. Funding the whole darn thing is the right way to move forward. Well, obviously, we've seen the House do that twice, potentially even being prepared to tee up a third vote this week. But as you know, the dynamics are different in the Senate, where you need those 60 votes. You need Democrats on board, which is potentially why we're seeing this approach and this offer in the Senate. So, ultimately, if that's what advances in the Senate-- again, splitting off part of ICE from DHS funding-- would you be willing to vote in favor of that? I'll deal with the pitches as they come in, but I heard you ask your previous guest, what do Democrats want? And most people in this town have no idea what Democrats want because they continue to move the goalposts forward. First it was that they wanted body cameras and more training. Republicans conceded, offered more of that. Then it was things about not having enforcement around churches and courtrooms and schools and more identification of the ICE officers. Republicans offered that as well, and that's still not good enough to have some funding within the Department of Homeland Security. So I don't know what my Democrat colleagues want in this. They've wanted for 15 years to defund the entire ICE. They've wanted to, during the Biden years, have a wide-open border. It's frustrating. That's not the policies that voters wanted when they elected Republicans to have control of the House, the Senate, and the White House in '24. They rejected, the voters, those open-border policies. It's unfair for eight Senate Democrats to continue to be stubborn on their open border policies. I know some of your GOP colleagues in the House, particularly in the House Freedom Caucus, have also raised some concerns about potentially putting parts of the SAVE Act or the SAVE America Act into a separate reconciliation package, which is now also being talked about in the Senate. Do you think that would work? I'm not sure that, mechanically, that attaching that good endeavor-- which is based upon two main principles, one, voter ID and, two, guaranteeing that only citizens vote in our elections. Those are great principles that everybody throughout this country should want to embrace. But I'm not sure that attaching that to the already complicated border funding is a way to get both across the finish line. Both should get across the finish line. America wholeheartedly supports only citizens voting in our elections. America wholeheartedly, regardless of Democrat, Republican, or independent, what color you're from, what part of the country you're from. Everybody wants voter ID. We should get those things done. But I'm not sure that pairing them together is the best way to get either or both done. Obviously, we're now more than a month into this partial government shutdown, and CBS News has been asking all members of Congress what they are doing to end it. So tell us specifically what you are doing to end this shutdown. Yeah, well, like I said earlier, I was at LaGuardia this morning. I met with some folks who are TSA agents from the Association of Federal Government Employees, a good, hardworking unit. They took their oath, and they're right now exercising their oath. They're showing up to work every day, despite missing three paychecks now in a row. And these are not six-figure employees. These are hardworking, blue-collar employees who are trying to make ends meet. It's unfair that this government has failed to pay them for now three paychecks. I'm in the Problem Solvers Caucus. I'm eager to work across party lines to ensure that we do the business of this great country. But I'm asking my Democrat colleagues to tell America, what the heck do you want to reopen our Department of Homeland Security? We've got to pay our Coast Guard. We've got to fund their operations. We have to have solid cybersecurity operations. We should pay our TSA agents. I'm flexible. I can get there. I can sign on to a deal that doesn't give me 100% of what I want, but my Democrat colleagues need to stop moving the goalposts on this issue. And then just very quickly before we let you go, I know you mentioned that you were at LaGuardia earlier. Obviously, that was the scene of that horrific crash between an Air Canada jet and a fire truck. What more are you learning about that incident? Yeah, I'm going to reserve my total judgment until the NTSB report comes out. Initially, we're told that staffing levels were appropriate. The training was appropriate. I watched some of this terrible, horrific videos where two pilots lost their lives, others injured in this process. We should examine the details that went into that incident. We should want to correct the mistakes that went into that incident. Our airports should be safe. We should fund our TSA agents. We should fund our Department of Homeland Security, and we should ensure that they are as safe as possible.
