Kaitlan Collins Says Staffers Still Figuring Out How To Pay TSA After New Trump Promise

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins told Anderson Cooper on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s staff did not have the details finalized on how the government would pay TSA agents before the president’s executive order.

Collins joined Anderson Cooper 360 to discuss Trump’s Thursday night executive order directing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to “immediately pay our TSA Agents.” The move comes after weeks of a partial government shutdown and Congressional gridlock over funding TSA’s parent agency, DHS.

“So how would this work?” Cooper asked. “Do we know when this might happen, how this might happen?”

Collins said that those questions remained unanswered, telling Cooper that though sources were claiming the funding would come from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, even the president’s staff was unsure about how that money would be given to TSA.

“Yeah, Anderson, that was our first question after the president announced that he was going to take this executive action to pay the TSA employees who have gone so long without their paychecks, because obviously, typically these funds have to be congressionally appropriated, which is why this entire fight is playing out on Capitol Hill right now,” said Collins.

She continued:

What we have learned tonight, since the president made this announcement, is that likely these funds are going to come from that sweeping legislation that the president signed into law last summer. The One Big, Beautiful Bill. And so it remains to be seen exactly how that’s going to shake out. It’s not finalized yet. And what we’re told tonight is that senior staff are actually still working through what this is actually going to– how this is actually going to happen in order to get these TSA workers paid.

But the people I’ve spoken with sound pretty confident that it will actually work and that this is a viable solution here. One thing that still remains to be seen, though, is as they’re going through this internal review of legally how they can use these funds to pay TSA workers under the purview of DHS is whether or not they’re actually going to get paid this weekend, because that’s when they’re set to miss that second paycheck. That’s part of what drove the president’s announcement here is the TSA workers not getting paid.

And also, I’m told he’s been frustrated by these long lines that we’ve seen playing out at several airports every single day this week, and, you know, only likely getting worse as spring break is about to happen. So it’s not totally clear how quickly this can happen. But we do know the White House staff is working on it right now, and that is likely where those funds are expected to come from, Anderson.

Watch above via CNN.

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