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House GOP Expected To Reject DHS Bill, Likely Extending Shutdown; Speaker Johnson Says House GOP Will Put Continuing Resolution On Floor To Fund DHS Until May 22. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired March 27, 2026 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That's the most they have seen since the start of this year.

The TSA call-out numbers have been particularly high, about 30 percent of employees calling out sick as they're not getting paid, just got another zero-dollar paycheck. I want you to listen now to one of the passengers I talked to earlier.

The spirits here are remaining pretty good. A lot of folks taking it in stride. They just want to get to where they're going. Listen.

MUNTEAN: How long have you been waiting in the line?

DONTE CARTER, TRAVELER: About an hour and 45 minutes.

MUNTEAN: Were you surprised by that?

CARTER: No, I wasn't surprised. I just wanted them to pay them people, so we can move through a little swiftly.

(LAUGH)

MUNTEAN: How upset are you by that? I mean, how annoying is this? What's the frustration? What's the emotion?

CARTER: Just trying to get my wife on our vacation and enjoy our time. I just want to get her through, so we can get to where we need to be. That's it.

MUNTEAN: There is a sign here in the airport that says 'Enjoy the journey,' but that's down in baggage glam. So none of these folks have seen it. It is a really tough rub for a lot of folks here at BWI. We don't get live numbers here from BWI, by the way.

You've seen the live numbers at the airports in Houston all week long. They don't have a tracker here. They do kind of locally have some screens in front of a checkpoint here. It says we apologize, but we can't give you an estimate for the time right now.

That's how bad things are here at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. And given the fact that there appears to be no deal in the House seems like this is going to last for at least a little while longer, Boris. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, Pete, no one's enjoying the journey. The journey is terrible right now. That one guy was so annoyed he tried to do your live shot for you. We saw that. And like, let's just talk about what these TSA workers are dealing with, Pete.

I mean, some of them are late fees on credit cards. They have loans. I mean, even by the time they get paid, they have incurred so many expenses --

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Hundred percent.

KEILAR: -- that they are now on the hook for, and maybe they can't pay. And it's just a nightmare.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. We've heard reports that some of them have started donating blood to try to --

KEILAR: Plasma.

SANCHEZ: -- make ends meet. Plasma, yeah, to try to make ends meet. I'm not sure if we still have Pete there, but yeah, I was just wondering, Pete, the folks that you've spoken to in line, were they aware of the drama that we're watching unfold on Capitol Hill now, where it seemed this morning that there was going to be a solution, and now it seems way less likely.

Or are they fully aware that this might actually keep getting worse?

MUNTEAN: Everyone is pretty clued in.

(LAUGH)

MUNTEAN: Based on the passengers I've talked to, there was a mom -- no, really. And there was a mom with her young daughter and her mom, so ages from 8 to 80 there, and she was explaining to the young kid. You know, this is a partial government shutdown. This is what happens when you see it. Trying to put it in real simple terms.

I talked to one guy in the line here. He says, this is what happens when you vote Republican. Take that for what it's worth. A lot of opinions here in the line and a lot of folks are really, just simply, wanting to get spring break going. And that is why we are seeing so many people here, spring break travel. Plus the fact that so many TSA workers have called out means that one of the main checkpoints here, Checkpoint A, is completely shuttered, and that's the result you see, the line behind me.

So, it's not going to be good for at least a little while longer.

KEILAR: What a headache. Pete Muntean, thank you so much for that.

And Jeff, we mentioned, of course, the TSA workers. And it's because you see it. It's so visual. But there are also FEMA workers. There are civilians working for the Coast Guard. There are a lot of people right now who are working without getting paid. They're in the very same situation. And it is just so difficult for these folks, as they're providing these very important services.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: During a time of war. I mean, that adds another sort of element to all of this. And we all remember why the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of 9/11. I mean, the U.S. is engaged in active military action with Iran.

Thousands of troops are potentially being deployed, or they are being deployed to the region. We will see what their orders are from there. So that, you know, when you sort of take the broader look at this, it is just truly extraordinary.

And it should be unacceptable to all Americans of their leaders. Yes, there is, you know, obviously differences in Washington. But where is the president on this? So just talking to a couple Republicans, there's been a very dynamic phone call with Speaker Johnson.

It's one of the reasons that he is not here at this point. There's been a conference-wide phone call. And some Republicans are asking, you know, is the president supporting this plan that they are going to do and try and vote for this bill? So, again, it's two o'clock in the afternoon on the East here on a Friday.

The president is flying to Miami momentarily. Is he going to get involved on this? He could end this, or he could not. But that is kind of the extraordinary moment of all of these forces coming together here.

[14:05:00]

But look, the Senate often jams the House. We've seen that again and again on bills. It's how it works. It's the lower chamber for a reason, and that's what's happening here. But the House, obviously, we'll see what they do here momentarily, but it looks like they're not going with the Senate plan.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. A lot harder for them to even try to go with the plan, given the very thin margins that the Speaker is working with. Let's go to --

ZELENY: But they could get bipartisan support. I mean, in the Senate --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

ZELENY: It was passed at 3 a.m. --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

ZELENY: -- by unanimous consent, by a voice vote of Democrats and Republicans. So that would be possible, but certainly, not in this current iteration of the House.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Let's go to Kristen Holmes, who's live for us at the White House. Kristen, do we have an indication of where President Trump is on this Senate plan?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's what we know. We know that whatever Speaker Johnson presents at the microphones is going to be something that President Trump knows about and has signed off on. Speaker Johnson doesn't do anything without the blessing of President Trump. He would not get out there ahead of something that President Trump was in full support of.

And what we've heard from President Trump is lukewarm at best. He was fighting this very iteration of this proposal in the Senate for weeks, and then after we saw Thune, we saw the pressure from Senate Republicans, the conversations he was having with them, he has backed away. And by backed away, I don't mean he supported this plan.

In fact, he was asked specifically during a meeting if he supported it, and he said he doesn't think he would support any plan that they would put forward. All he cared about was the SAVE America Act, but he did stop openly fighting it. He did stop telling Republicans that they absolutely could not negotiate with Democrats.

And of course, that's how we ended up here with this passing in the Senate. But, President Trump, there is one thing that he really deeply cares about, and it is trying to get that SAVE America Act through. And when you're seeing a lot of your biggest supporters saying that they don't want to get behind this Senate plan because it doesn't support the SAVE America Act, it doesn't even include the SAVE America Act, that's going to be hard for President Trump to ignore because that, again, is where he wants to be.

He wants to be where these other conservatives are, where these MAGA Republicans are, saying that they don't approve of this plan. And we know that President Trump also had other issues with this, just the idea of not funding ICE, not funding CBP. Those were things that he was angry about behind the scenes.

Now, they were able to get him there, and again, not in terms of support, but just in terms of him not fighting it. But, President Trump, we know he has lines directly to all of these conservative House members. If he is hearing from enough of them saying, we're not going to support this without the SAVE Act, we're not going to support this without voter ID, that's the train he actually wanted to be on, and he'll start to get behind that version of whatever it is that they're doing.

Now, of course, with all of this, we know that it is very bad for both parties that this is unresolved, and we can see those lines there. We hear people talking to Ed, talking to Pete, that they say they blame the government. They're not always specifying which party.

They blame the government for not doing their job when it comes to what's happening with TSA. And, of course, this brings to the question of what exactly does all this mean in relation to that executive order, that executive action that President Trump took to pay those TSA workers?

Is that something that now, President Trump feels like he has in his pocket so he can hold up this bill on the other side?

KEILAR: All right, Kristen, all important things to consider as this is now, it appears, going to continue. We're waiting to hear from Speaker Mike Johnson. We're going to bring that to you. Should happen any moment now. We're going to get into a quick break. We'll be right back with this news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:13:31]

SANCHEZ: These are live pictures of Capitol Hill. You see reporters there gathered around a podium. We've been watching this podium now for the better part of a half an hour because we're expecting that Speaker Mike Johnson is going to come out and address the fact that he's not going to put this DHS funding bill that the Senate agreed to very early this morning on the floor of the House, in part because he simply doesn't have the votes to pass it.

He's offered up a 60-day Continuing Resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security. We understand just moments ago, reporters saw Johnson walking down the hall. It appeared that he was approaching the podium, but then he went behind a closed door, apparently to another meeting. We assume he's in communication with the White House.

We haven't really heard the president weigh in on this strategy from Johnson, so we are monitoring the developments there on Capitol Hill, and we'll keep you posted once Johnson does appear and begins to answer questions.

But right now, we're tracking some major Breaking News in the war with Iran. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio says he is anticipating Iran's response to the White House.

And Mike Johnson just appeared at the podium. Let's go there to the Capitol live.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) HOUSE SPEAKER: A long day, but we just had a very fruitful, almost two-hour conference call with all the House Republicans, and we have a united group.

Let me just be completely unequivocal and put this out here in the open and in the beginning here to make clear the Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement. We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government.

[14:15:00]

The Democrats fundamentally disagree. The Senate Democrats have hoisted upon this appropriations process their radical, crazy agenda. We call it crazy because that's what it is. They want to reopen the borders and they want to stop the deportation of dangerous criminal illegal aliens. We have to do these basic functions of government.

We have to fund them in order to do them. In the last several days, we have recent examples of dangerous criminals in this country killing innocent Americans. We had an 18-year-old college student in Chicago, a young lady, who was shot in the back by a dangerous criminal who had been released in that sanctuary city and first, released at the border under Joe Biden.

They opened the border wide for four years. Just yesterday, or in the last 36 hours or so, an 83-year-old man was pushed onto the subway tracks and run over by a dangerous criminal illegal alien. This has to stop.

The Republicans are not going to be a party to this. They have taken hostage the funding processes of government, so that they can impose their radical agenda on the American people, and we can't have any part of it. This gambit that was done last night is a joke.

I'm quite convinced that it can't be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill, and I'm going to just read you one excerpt of it because it's pretty alarming and it says everything that you need to know in Section 4. This is on Page 2 of the bill. This is an actual copy of the bill, that excerpt.

It says, quote, "The contents printed under the headings of this bill, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Security Operations, under the heading of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and Protection, shall have no force or effect for purposes of this act and amounts specified in the final bill under the subheading Border Security Operations and under the heading U.S. Customs and Border Protection and under the headings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security shall be zero."

We're not doing that. And it is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at three o'clock in the morning and try to hoist this upon the American people and then get on their jets and go home for their holiday, and pretend and think that we're going to go along with that. So we're going to do something different.

We're going to do the responsible thing. Republicans are going to continue to govern and do the right thing morally, legally and politically. We're going to take care of those who take care of us.

The employees in the Department of Homeland Security have gone without funding and without paychecks for 42 days. It's the second longest shutdown in U.S. history, bested only by the longest shutdown in U.S. history that these same radical Democrats hoisted upon the government in the fall of last year.

42 days they've gone without pay. We've had, by some estimates, close to 500 TSA agents who have resigned from their jobs and who could blame them? They've gone half the fiscal year without a regular paycheck. We can't ask that of anyone. And the lines around the airlines and at the airports have been wrapped around the buildings because of all this turmoil.

We are very grateful to have a strong commander-in-chief in the White House who has taken real leadership. President Trump has already ordered by executive order that TSA agents will be paid, and that machinery is in process right now. The Office of Management and Budget is working through that to make sure that that happens.

And we will reduce the lines and the waits at the airlines, and we'll make sure that those who are protecting us are paid. But what we are going to present and what we're going to vote on this floor, our Rules Committee is working through this right now. We're going to put a clean, simple Continuing Resolution that will go until May 22nd.

It's just a number of weeks to allow for all those who sacrificially serve the country and protect other Americans, all these agencies, 10 agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, will continue at their current funding levels to make sure that they are protected. We're going to send that over to the Senate, and we hope that they'll accept that. They can do it in record time, just like that, with unanimous consent.

They can do that as early as Monday. In the meantime, TSA will be paid. We will have done our jobs, and we will protect the homeland, because that is the most basic responsibility of the Congress, is to protect the American people.

We're not playing political games on this. We encourage some of our Democrats, hopefully, we'll have some of our Democrats in the House who go along with this, and stop the pain that's being forced upon these people. The reason that we can't accept this ridiculousness, OK, is because we're not going to risk not funding the agencies that keep the American people safe.

The Department of Homeland Security is the third largest department in the federal government. It has 10 agencies beneath it. It's not just TSA. It's also FEMA, the Coast Guard, all these agencies that keep us safe. We must fund them. This is not a game.

Republicans will do the responsible and honorable thing, and Democrats will continue to play politics.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Mr. Speaker. You and John Thune are not on the same page.

[14:20:00]

You came out and criticized Democrats. He was the engineer behind this. Why are you guys not on the same page? And are you not extending the shutdown if you were to accept what the Senate had passed, this could end tonight and the TSA lines would shrink.

JOHNSON: I wouldn't call John Thune the engineer of this. Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate --

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House. Let me answer the question, Chad (ph). I have to protect the House, and I have to protect the American people. That's our responsibility. Our colleagues on this side understand this is not a game.

We are not playing their games. These people want open borders, and they want criminal illegal aliens in the country. They do not want to enforce the law. They want to literally defund, you just read it in the bill here. They want to give zero dollars to enforcing federal immigration laws and keeping the borders secure.

That was the biggest issue in the election of 2024, the wide-open border that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hoisted upon the country. And 20 million, by some estimates, 20 million dangerous criminal illegal aliens included in that number came over the border. We have terrorists in our country. We have, obviously, murderers. They're putting it on display. And then these big blue cities that have sanctuary city policies, they're releasing these people onto the streets.

They released them over the border when they came over under the Biden years, and that is the turmoil that we're facing right now, the very serious threats to the homeland and everybody. It's not just long lines at the airport. It is the danger and safety of everyone.

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: We'll talk more after this is passed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has the president endorsed this plan, Mr. Speaker?

JOHNSON: I spoke to the president a few moments ago. He understands exactly what we're doing and why, and he supports it, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, the American people are just sick and tired of it. Every one of you, both Republicans and Democrats, come to this podium and blame the other side. People have been standing in lines three, four, five hours at a time.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's TSA workers that are selling their plasma.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what point is a leader on either side going to stand up and say, we have a path forward that everyone will agree to? This vote today will extend the shutdown under any circumstances.

JOHNSON: No, it won't. No, it won't.

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: Thank you. Let me answer the question. I'm glad you brought it up. The House Republicans have now voted that today will be the fourth time to fund the homeland security. This is not party blame game. This is a record. You can hold up the record. Look at the Democrats. They're voting over and over.

Last night -- yesterday afternoon, we gave them a chance to fund homeland security. You know how many House Democrats voted yes? Four of them. They want to use people as pawns. People are not pawns. These are workers who are sacrificially serving the country, many of them without pay, to make sure that you and your families are safe. And we're done with it.

This is not a political blame game. This is one party doing the job and getting the government funded, and another that's using people as pawns. We're not going to do that. Listen, we're going to send it over there, and you can see what they do.

If this is not -- you see it (ph) and they don't do it, the president has shown leadership. He's going to fund TSA agents. We'll get that covered.

But we have the rest of the country to take care of. We're not asking them to do anything heroic. These aren't partisan games. We're not adding bells and whistles to this. It is a clean continuation of funding to make sure that the most basic responsibility of government is fulfilled. And we'll see how that goes in the Senate (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: All right, we are listening to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is very clearly in a very tough spot here. You can tell by how he is pretending that Democrats are in control of the Senate and that the Senate bill that he and House Republicans are rejecting was not actually sent over to the House by the Republican-led upper chamber.

He said House Republicans are not going to be part of any effort to reopen borders or stop immigration enforcement. He said they're going to deport illegal aliens. This we should note, as ICE has actually been sort of redirected to go to some airports, and he said Senate Democrats have foisted this on them as a radical, crazy agenda.

But we do just need to note that if this is part of a radical, crazy agenda, it was good enough for Senate Republicans who do hold the majority in the Senate. And he said the Senate bill has zero funding for immigration enforcement. Now, there isn't ICE and CBP funding, but we should note here that CBP and ICE are funded quite substantially for years by that Big, Beautiful Bill, that landmark legislation of President Trump's.

So there was sort of a question even in this, what ultimately did Democrats even achieve by going through this shutdown? But clearly, there are things Republicans want in this bill.

SANCHEZ: Those immigration agents have been paid through this shutdown because of the BBB. So it's notable that TSA agents, the civilian part of the Coast Guard, as well as FEMA workers, CISA workers as well, they have gone without paychecks. It's interesting to hear Johnson say that he doesn't believe that every Republican Senator read the language of this bill.

He called it a joke. And he deflected questions about John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, putting this forward. Thune's plan, of course, was to get most of DHS funded and then go back and try to pass funding specifically for those immigration agencies individually.

[14:25:00]

It's also notable that he's talking about Democrats wanting open borders. That's not what they were demanding out of the shutdown. They wanted adjustments to immigration enforcement policy, changes to body cameras, masks being worn, judicial warrants being required to enter people's property.

So a lot there from Speaker Johnson that doesn't pass muster, right? Let's go live to Lauren Fox, who's on Capitol Hill for us.

Lauren, Speaker Johnson clearly trying to spin the fact that he does not have enough votes to pass the plan that Republican Senators put forward.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, the reality is he probably would have enough votes if he were to get some Democrats along with him. And we heard from Leader Jeffries earlier today that he said, Democrats were willing to do whatever is necessary in order to end TSA workers not getting paid as soon as today.

So the votes likely would have been there if he would have brought this to the floor. But obviously, he is facing a lot of pressure from conservatives in his conference who were not happy with what the Senate sent over in the middle of the night.

I mean, it was really astounding to watch the Speaker of the House highlight parts of this legislation he did not like and then accuse Republicans of having not possibly read the entirety of this bill if they were truly supportive of it. It's just a good reminder. Like you noted, this bill was passed by voice vote in the middle of the night by the Senate.

That means that at some point, there was a unanimous agreement that this was the path forward. And obviously, this puts him and Majority Leader, John Thune, on a collision course. John Thune is the Senate Majority Leader. And while he tried not to call out John Thune by name and he tried to tap dance around the fact that Thune was responsible for putting this on the floor, Thune is the Majority Leader.

Johnson can argue that this was Chuck Schumer's master plan all along, but he doesn't have control of the Senate floor. John Thune does. Clearly, there is daylight between those two Republican leaders. And I would also point out that Johnson said he spoke to Donald Trump, the President, just before he came out.

That might give you an indication of where the president is right now if the Speaker of the House felt comfortable coming out here and making such a juxtaposition to what Senate Republican leaders did just a few hours ago. I mean, clearly, this is not a shutdown that is going to end anytime soon unless there is some really radical shift in Speaker Johnson's direction. Given how forceful he just was, that does not look to be the case right now.

KEILAR: Yeah, certainly. Lauren Fox, thank you very much for that. Keith Jeffries is with us now, TSA's former Federal Security Director for LAX. Keith, I mean, this is -- this is -- the more this goes on and on, the more concerning this is. As you are looking at this now, going to stretch on, what are your worries?

KEITH JEFFRIES, FORMER FEDERAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: The first thing that comes to mind is it's going to get worse for many of these employees under DHS, especially TSA. It's going to have a significant impact on both retention and recruitment, and that's just a huge concern.

SANCHEZ: Do you anticipate that the number of call outs are going to continue to increase and that the number of TSA officers that resign is also going to increase?

JEFFRIES: Yeah, I think it's going to be a domino effect, right? After this shutdown, when it ever -- whenever it does finally end, you're going to see folks that were kind of on the edge about do I retire now or not, since TSA is 22, 23 years old at this point, you're going to see them say, you know what, it's time for me to leave. You're going to see those that are kind of middle of the road, spent more time not getting paid. This is ridiculous. And they're going to move on to something else.

And then what's interesting is this is the time of the year that especially at the large airports, where you do a lot of onboarding of new TSA agents to get them ready for the summer rush. And all of that's going to be impacted as far as recruitment.

So it's -- yeah, it's going to get worse. Even today, there's at least several airports that are reporting 50 to 60 percent call outs right now.

KEILAR: And how does this, Keith, affect security?

JEFFRIES: Well, it's a huge impact, right? So you have the large crowds, which absolutely creates that soft target for those bad people with bad intent. That's a concern. That's why you have ICE agents that are doing crowd monitoring along with local law enforcement and/or crowd control.

That is a huge, huge concern for all of those federal security directors out there trying to manage the operation. But a little bit closer to home is how much attention are those folks when they're observing the X-ray images that they have to -- that's a very stressful position. How focused are they if they're thinking about how am I going to pay my next bills?

SANCHEZ: Yeah, it's a tough position to be in. Keith Jeffries, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. Jeff Zeleny, you've been watching all of this (inaudible). What are your thoughts?

ZELENY: Look, I think what this means now is there's going to be a new immigration fight starting really all over again.