00:00Well, it's pretty painful for everyone. So the TSA workers aren't getting paid now.
00:03This is the second week that the paychecks have essentially bounced.
00:07And as a result, you're seeing people not show up for work. You said it, 10%.
00:13And for the people traveling, we're seeing sort of pockets of disruption.
00:18There's not sort of a blanket disruption across the country.
00:20You have airports like Atlanta, Houston. Here in New York, you have some disruption.
00:24It seems manageable at this point. Annoying, for sure. Anyone who's traveling.
00:30I'll go back to Frankfurt tonight. I can report back.
00:33God willing.
00:34Yes. Elon Musk willing, maybe. So we shall see.
00:38But it's at a point where it's bad and annoying, but it's not quite bad enough that the pain point
00:45isn't quite there yet.
00:46And that might explain why we're at this impasse.
00:48We're not seeing the movement that we saw a couple of months ago during the shutdown where you actually had
00:53aircraft taken out, flights taken out.
00:56That's not the case where we are now.
00:59Speaking of D.C., Wendy Benjaminson, what are we seeing?
01:03I mean, is Benny right? Is there just not enough pressure still on lawmakers to get this done?
01:08I heard one Republican, I think it was Kennedy, saying this week,
01:12you should just take out the ICE portion of this bill and debate it separately so that they can get
01:16DHS funded.
01:17Any signs of life there on Capitol Hill? Any likelihood this is going to get resolved?
01:22There are beginning to be glimmers, OK?
01:25I mean, that's the best, you know, that we can do.
01:27But to Senator Kennedy's point, the thing is that ICE is already being funded through other means.
01:33So funding DHS and stripping that out wouldn't really do anything because they are they were always being funded through
01:40this.
01:40The play that the Democrats made, and, you know, I think it was a smart one at the time, was
01:47to, you know, say to them,
01:50no, we are not going to fund the entire agency until you give us these restrictions on ICE enforcement tactics.
01:57Now, the White House has come back, led by Tom Holman, the Borders Are.
02:01The White House has come back overnight with a plan that gives some of the things the Democrats wanted, but
02:06not everything.
02:07The Democrats came out of the meeting, didn't talk to reporters, and they did not indicate whether they were going
02:15to take the deal.
02:16As the pain that my colleague Benedict described there, Democrats might consider taking partial measures, getting some of the wins.
02:25And that would be body cameras on ICE agents and other, like, not arresting people in church, you know, things
02:32like that.
02:33Using federal warrants or judicial warrants instead of what they're using now.
02:37Exactly.
02:38Actually having a warrant before you burst into someone's home.
02:41Yeah.
02:41So the so that those are now in negotiation and we're waiting to see, because at some point this was
02:49right after the killing of Alex Petty, of course, this was Democrats moral stand.
02:53But as the pain on travel and as we get through spring break and closer to summer travel, the Democrats
03:00moral stand may look obstreperous at some point.
03:05When you're bringing up summer travel, Benny, let me turn to you on that point.
03:08I just booked some tickets for a summer vacation at the end of August.
03:11Hold that on your calendar so that you'll be here when I'm out.
03:13Of course, Christina.
03:14You keep beating me to the vacation requests.
03:16I really got to get on it.
03:17But I did have a moment of some relief that I was able to do that before we saw this
03:20huge upswing in prices.
03:21I'm curious, as you've listened to executives throughout the aviation industry, Benny, what they're saying about the prospect for tickets
03:28going up in price in the near term and the medium term.
03:30How are they wrestling with the dislocation that we've seen in energy prices here over the last few weeks?
03:35I mean, ticket prices will go up.
03:38There is no doubt about that.
03:39They have to pass on the higher costs and principally the fuel cost to the consumer.
03:45That will happen.
03:46So you did the right thing by booking early.
03:47And that's what we're seeing across the board at the moment.
03:50We spoke to a bunch of aviation executives this week.
03:54And they're on a bit of a sugar high, to be honest, because everyone is booking right now.
03:58Everyone is piling in.
04:00United told us they had some of the best booking days in history in March so far.
04:06Just everyone is piling in because everyone sort of has that sense of FOMO.
04:10Is it going to get really expensive?
04:12I better book my ticket now.
04:14Spring break, you mentioned it, but the summer vacation.
04:16So the question is, at what point will the higher ticket prices kick in?
04:21And as a result, at what point will people then stop booking?
04:24So you might see people going on shorter trips.
04:27You might see people taking the car.
04:30So right now things are looking great, unexpectedly great for the industry.
04:34But that could turn very quickly.
04:36Can I follow up on that quickly?
04:37If we get to August, prices are still elevated.
04:40Is my ticket, is someone's ticket safe and secure?
04:43Or is it likely to lead to cancellations and backups if we're seeing airlines having to wrestle with much higher
04:48prices?
04:48It depends a little bit on the routes.
04:50Scott Kirby, the CEO of United, he said,
04:52We are preparing for the higher prices by taking out some routes at this point.
04:57We're taking out some what's called capacity out of the market.
05:00So they are making sure that sort of non-profitable, non-key routes may not be addressed anymore.
05:06So it really depends on where you're going.
05:08So if you're on a popular route, you're safe.
05:10But if you're going somewhere esoteric, then you might be in trouble.
05:13I love esoteric.
05:13Are you feeling better about your vacation now?
05:15Can I ask Wendy some Congress questions?
05:17Sorry, back to Wendy.
05:18My selfish segment there.
05:20Sorry, I wanted to have that confirmation from Benny.
05:22That's really why I brought him here.
05:24Of course.
05:24There are a couple votes coming up.
05:27The Senate is supposed to vote Sunday on a motion to advance the nomination of Mark Wayne Mullen,
05:33who would replace Kristi Noem as the Secretary of Department of Homeland Security.
05:37That did make it out of committee, I believe, by one vote.
05:39Correct me if you're wrong.
05:41Do we think that will go through at this point?
05:43It seems like that's going to happen.
05:44The other thing they've got going is a possible $200 billion Iran war request from the Pentagon
05:49and the Save America Vote Eligibility Act.
05:52Run us through those.
05:54Okay.
05:55So taking them one at a time, Mark Wayne Mullen is going to be confirmed.
05:58I mean, no Democrat will vote for him, you know, just on partisan principle.
06:04And because I'm sure they don't want him to continue these policies that Kristi Noem and Donald Trump wanted.
06:11But senators love senators.
06:13They do believe a president gets his own cabinet.
06:15And there's a majority of Republicans.
06:17So that one's done.
06:18The next one was, oh, the $200 billion for the war.
06:23Yes.
06:24We talk about that so cavalierly, Wendy, but this is an incredible sum of money.
06:28It's two-thirds of, I believe, the Defense Department's, something like two-thirds of the Defense Department's actual budget.
06:35It is a tremendous amount of money.
06:38And Congress is, you know, staring down those midterms where their jobs are on the line and funding this war
06:46at the level of $200 billion is enough to even make Republicans' eyes water.
06:50And I think there may be some pushback.
06:54Yet we have yet to see a real Republican pushback to any of Donald Trump's policies.
06:59And then on the other hand, I've got multiple hands here, we – on the other hand, you know, that
07:08is – that's a tremendous amount of money.
07:10And this war is deeply unpopular.
07:13And there was another –
07:14And we've also got – that's OK.
07:15I'm going to stop bombarding you with questions.
07:17But we've also got – there's supposed to be a debate and a vote on this Voter Eligibility Act, this
07:22Safeguard America.
07:23This is a pet project of a lot of Republicans, something that they campaign on.
07:28And is that likely to get passed?
07:29Do they have the votes for that?
07:32That's – that one's a little – going to be a little interesting to watch.
07:35I'm not really sure.
07:36It's got some poison pill stuff that will make Democrats not vote for it, including the bans on transgender treatment
07:45and athletes.
07:47So that's a bit of a poison pill that's stuck in a voting bill.
07:51Some Republicans may vote against it, however, because of the mail-in voting ban.
07:56Right.
07:56That became very popular during COVID.
07:58But it's still very, very popular among older and rural voters.
08:03And where do they live?
08:05In Republican states, in Republican districts.
08:08And so there will be people who are cognizant that their constituents like mail-in voting.
08:13It's convenient.
08:14And so this may not get through, although Trump is lobbying this one, to quote him, the likes of which
08:21have never been seen.
08:22I mean, he's really hammering them on this.
08:24But there is irony there because we saw the president flip-flop a bit on mail-in voting after he
08:28– you know, after Republicans didn't do as well as Democrats.
08:32He was trying to get out the vote and tell people, go ahead, it's okay, after saying it wasn't safe
08:36and people weren't doing it, use that mail-in voting.
08:38But this is trying to curtail the number of people who can mail-in vote.
08:42So I guess that does make sense.
08:44We'll see what happens there.
08:45As, again, Congress is in session over the course of this weekend.
08:48We're tracking that with our colleagues on the Hill and with Wendy as well.
08:50Wendy Benjaminson, our senior editor, covering the D.C. Bureau on weekends for us.
08:54Wendy, great to see you.
08:55Benedict Camel, in from Germany, flying back tonight.
08:57Wendy Benjaminson, our senior editor, covering the D.C. Bureau on weekends for us.
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