Trump Uses TSA Shutdown Crisis He Created to Push Project 2025 Privatization Scheme

The Grift Continues

Donald Trump has found a new way to profit from the misery he creates. After subjecting Transportation Security Administration workers to more than 40 days without paychecks during his second partial government shutdown, the president is now pushing to privatize the entire agency—cutting 9,400 jobs and slashing $1.5 billion from TSA funding.

According to White House budget documents obtained by Reuters, the Trump administration believes private security screeners will be "more efficient" than federal employees. The documents claim that "airports that already use this program have demonstrated savings compared to Federal screening operations" and promise the move would "begin reform of a troubled Federal agency."

This is rich coming from an administration that thought tariffs would magically restore American manufacturing and claimed that cherry-picked data from Walmart and DoorDash proved Trump saved the economy. The same people who can't read a price chart now want us to trust their analysis of airport security efficiency.

Project 2025's Fingerprints Are All Over This

Here's the thing Trump doesn't want you to notice: privatizing the TSA was explicitly outlined in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's authoritarian playbook that Trump swears he knows nothing about. You know, the same document that predicted his assault on the Department of Education, his plans to gut federal agencies, and his systematic dismantling of civil service protections.

Trump's agendas keep mysteriously aligning with a 900-page policy document he claims to have never read. Either he's the world's most dedicated plagiarist, or he's lying about his connection to Project 2025. Probably both.

The MAGA-controlled Congress had already proposed legislation to privatize airport security before this shutdown even began. This wasn't a response to a crisis—the crisis was manufactured to justify a plan that was already in motion.

Who Benefits? Not You.

Union leaders and security experts are sounding alarms about what privatization actually means for traveler safety.

"It's very important that people understand what privatization is," Johnny Jones, secretary treasurer for AFGE TSA Council 100, told CNN. "It has nothing to do with your security or your safety. It has everything to do with somebody making a profit."

The White House points to shorter security lines at airports using private contractors during the shutdown as evidence that privatization works. But there's a crucial detail they're glossing over: those private security companies probably didn't force their employees to work without pay for six weeks. When you actually compensate workers, they tend to show up for their shifts. Revolutionary concept.

Privatization means replacing accountable federal employees with contract workers employed by companies whose primary obligation is to shareholders, not public safety. It means less oversight, lower wages, higher turnover, and security screeners who are one bad quarter away from being replaced by whoever bids lowest.

Trump Created This Crisis, Then Exploited It

Let's be clear about how we got here. Trump rejected a bipartisan plan to pay TSA workers during the shutdown because Democrats wouldn't agree to fund ICE's deportation machine. He refused to sign any legislation until Congress passed the SAVE Act, his voter suppression bill. He chose not to work with Democrats, period.

The Trump administration tried to blame Democrats for the shutdown, just like they did during last year's full government shutdown. But Trump owns this disaster. He forced federal workers to choose between paying rent and showing up to protect travelers. He created the chaos, then pointed to the chaos as proof that the system is broken.

This is the con. Sabotage the government, then claim government doesn't work. Starve agencies of funding and staff, then privatize them when they struggle. It's disaster capitalism with a MAGA hat.

The Pattern Is Clear

Trump's policy agenda has never been about what's best for the American people. It's driven by ideology—in this case, the libertarian fantasy of dismantling federal agencies—and self-interest. Privatizing the TSA opens up billions in contracts for Trump-friendly corporations and eliminates thousands of union jobs held by workers who might actually vote against him.

This is the same playbook he's using everywhere: gut the Department of Education, politicize federal agencies, replace career civil servants with loyalists, and hand public functions to private companies that will kick back donations and favors.

Project 2025 laid it all out. Trump is just following the script, one manufactured crisis at a time.

The TSA employs approximately 60,000 people. Under Trump's plan, nearly 10,000 of them will lose their jobs so that private security firms can turn airport safety into a profit center. If you think that's going to make flying safer or more pleasant, you haven't been paying attention to what happens when you let corporations run essential public services.

Trump wants you to believe this is about efficiency. It's about money, control, and dismantling the federal workforce one agency at a time. And if Project 2025 is any guide, the TSA is just the beginning.