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Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, March 24th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that is gleefully reading about the expenses from the buffalo-centric ads that outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem filmed at Mount Rushmore. According to a statement from Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch and Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, Noem’s ad required $20,000 in horse rentals, nearly $4,000 in hair and makeup, and most confusingly, $500 to a South Dakota magic store. Yes, a magic store. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump pulls back on his threats to escalate the war in Iran. Shockingly, money may have been his motivating factor. And the Supreme Court looks ready to limit mail-in voting. Who needs the Save America Act when you have the highest court in your back pocket? But let’s start with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. It’s been more than a month since the Department of Homeland Security shut down, and American airports are definitely feeling it. So, in hopes of fixing yet another issue his administration created, Trump has sent ICE agents to at least 14 airports across the country to do something. But what is not exactly clear. You may have heard that the White House directed ICE to airports to help overburdened TSA agents. I can even tell you where Trump may have gotten the idea, from an exchange on Friday’s episode of the syndicated radio show, the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. Here’s Travis explaining on Fox News. 

[clip of Clay Travis] I had a caller on the show, the Clay and Buck show today, Charlie, had an interesting idea. What if President Trump announced that ICE agents were now going to be supplementing TSA agents inside of all of the airports? The ICE agents are still being paid. How quickly would Democrats panic if he said, hey, we’re going to put some ICE agents in line with the TSA, help to expedite everybody. And oh, by the way, if we think you might be an illegal when you’re coming through to try to get on an airplane, we are going to go ahead and arrest you at the airport too. 

Jane Coaston: It’s not a good sign when the Trump administration is getting policy ideas from callers on conservative radio shows. And if you read Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on Saturday, where he first threatened to send ICE agents to airports, you know his decision had nothing to do with making life easier for travelers and everything to do punishing, quote, “radical left Democrats.” He wrote in part, quote, “I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE agents to the airports, where they will do security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have come into our country. With heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.” In other words, ICE isn’t there to help you get to your gate sometime before the end of the decade, even though some security lines at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport are reaching five hours. So to talk more about what ICE agents are doing at American airports, I spoke to Andrea Flores. She’s a former Homeland Security official and founder of the Pro-Immigration Initiative, securing America’s Promise. Andrea, welcome to What a Day. 

Andrea Flores: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: ICE agents arrived in airports across the country on Monday, reportedly to help TSA agents with their duties amidst the DHS shutdown. But ICE and TSA are very different agencies. So does this decision make any sense to you? Is airport security something that ICE agents could realistically help with? I can’t believe I’m even asking you this question. 

Andrea Flores: I can’t believe you are either because it’s so ridiculous to think that ICE would have any help right now in terms of the airport wait times we’ve been seeing. And it’s just a big distracting stunt that also is really, really scary for people who have seen ICE take the lives of US citizens and round up their neighbors. And I just think it’s a big distraction from other issues right now that Trump doesn’t want us to think about. 

Jane Coaston: I wanna back up just for a second because we’ve seen the photos of long security lines, we’ve read the reports of agents quitting because they aren’t being paid, but like at a baseline level, what TSA does and what ICE does are so different. How could this possibly cross over? What is ICE being told that they are doing in airports? 

Andrea Flores: It’s such a good question. And to back up even like a little bit further, when the Department of Homeland Security was created after 9/11, there was this idea that immigration enforcement and airport security should go together, right? Because airports are what we call official ports of entry where there’s security to monitor people and goods moving through into the country. But ICE has grown a massive amount, as has the Border Patrol. And so these two agencies, even though they’re in the same big agency, have kind of eclipsed a lot of what TSA has done in terms of resources and size and scope. And so what has happened is because Democrats have successfully shut down funding for DHS right now, the administration is claiming they can’t pay their TSA agents. And so TSA agents are calling out, they’re not getting paid, they are under duress. But Democrats have also said, we’ll completely fund TSA. And Republicans have said no, the White House has said no. We want billions of more dollars for ICE and the Border Patrol. So I want people to understand it’s a choice right now that TSA is not funded and that the lines are long. 

Jane Coaston: Over the weekend, border czar Tom Homan essentially told CNN, how hard could airport security be? Which I’m not a huge fan of TSA, but I would find that extremely insulting if I were a TSA agent. He also said that ICE has already been at airports across the country for a long time. But I want to drill down on like, yes, I’m sure ICE has been at airports across the country because as you’ve mentioned, airports are ports of entry. But what is ICE being asked to do now that TSA currently isn’t able to do because of the shutdown? 

Andrea Flores: Nobody has any idea because Trump said they’re going to help. He also said they would be doing immigration enforcement. Then you get Tom Homan, the borders Czar coming in and saying, we’re figuring out a plan, and then Americans wake up to ICE agents. It seems like they’re outside of the zone of TSA. They don’t seem to be making anything run faster. And to your point, there is absolutely zero training that is applicable to helping people move through the airport in a safe way that ICE agents receive. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, like, they’re not the people reminding you to put everything in a bin or to take off your shoes or that you don’t need to take off your shoes. Like, I’ve just seen photos of people standing there, but maybe you’ve seen more? 

Andrea Flores: I’ve been trying to learn more, and I also have seen people standing there. And I think Americans have to ask why, I mean, because look, we’ve never seen DHS turn into what we’d call the worst nightmare of when it was created, right? Which is that it would act as a federal police force against our citizens for functions that it was never supposed to act on. And in this case, now they’re in airports where there are millions of people of color, Latinos who go through, and they still have a right in that role to ask people about their immigration status. So any idea of pretending that they’re just there to help TSA, I think we should be suspicious of. 

Jane Coaston: Right, I thought it was also very telling that President Trump said on Truth Social on Monday that the ICE agents in airports shouldn’t wear masks. And I’m like, oh, it seems pretty telling that you know that wearing a mask is inherently scary and threatening and that you shouldn’t do that in the airport. And maybe you shouldn’t do that anywhere else. 

Andrea Flores: The White House right now refuses to fund TSA because they do not want to take masks off of ICE. And–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Andrea Flores: –outside of airports. This is this is how absurd their logic is getting, right? We want to wear masks outside on the street, but we’ll take them off at airports. I mean, isn’t the doxing threat the same, this made-up threat that immigration enforcement has never before needed to wear masks, and now they’re keeping DHS shut down and TSA unpaid? Like none of this makes sense, but I am very worried about what could happen. Because all the elements of people being at risk to extreme enforcement actions are there, right? Crowds, long lines, confusion about authorities, law enforcement, armed officers. These are not good elements, historically, in our country at all. And I’m worried about people moving through these spaces. 

Jane Coaston: Absolutely, especially because you already have people who are under immeasurable stress, and that is because they are at an airport. But my question is, do you think this will put more pressure on Congress to come to an agreement to open DHS, given that, as you’ve mentioned, Democrats have already said, we will fund TSA, we will fund the Coast Guard. You just have to make these changes to how ICE functions. 

Andrea Flores: Democrats, I’m going to say have been surprisingly united in this plan to single out ICE funding. And I think that’s unique because frankly, they hadn’t been united on immigration before this moment. And so I’m not quite sure what will happen, but I do think it is exposing in the White House negotiation that they’re in just how much the White House isn’t meeting them at the basic minimum of like where Senator Cruz, Republican, Senator Kennedy, Republican, they’re saying, why don’t we just fund TSA? I think it’s putting more pressure on Republicans, and that’s not wishful thinking because I used to work for Democrats. I just think it is actually putting more on Republicans right now. 

Jane Coaston: As someone who is an immigration policy expert, what will you be watching for in the coming weeks and months? 

Andrea Flores: So when you look at how this year started, uh it started out in such an extreme way. And I think that was somewhat intentional by this administration, right? Because we saw thousands of agents in one city and that was extreme and it never happened. And now we see hundreds of agents in Minneapolis and we’re like, great, it deescalated. But we’ve never had 100 agents or more in one city like that, just patrolling. Same here in DC where I’m at, those National Guard was sent in August, now I’m used to them, right? I think there’s a normalization happening with some of these immigration enforcement tactics. And so I’m watching for how how it changes and how you know the disappearance of like our neighbors and the tactics get quieter, but even more effective and bigger, right? More people sitting in detention, more deaths in detention. More warehouses be turned into detention centers. More people losing legal status. We have the birthright citizenship case in the Supreme Court. Will Trump successfully end birthright citizenship? The next case after that is will Trump be successful in taking legal status from over 300,000 Haitians in this country? So those things are not the kind of shock and awe of enforcement in the streets, but they’re life-changing and they’re community-changing. And what I want people to understand is that he is doing two things. He’s targeting undocumented immigrants, many who have been here a long time and who previously Republicans wanted to legalize. But he’s also growing the undocumented population by essentially saying, it doesn’t matter if you play by the rules, he’s trying to penalize people who applied for green cards, who tried to get naturalized. And that, it’s a paradigm shift in this field, right? Because it’s not so simple anymore as will Democrats support immigration reform if they win back power? Now it’s the question of what kind of immigration system will they have to rebuild in the first place? And that is a moment we haven’t been in modern times in the immigration space. 

Jane Coaston: Andrea, thank you so much for taking the time to join me. 

Andrea Flores: Thank you. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Andrea Flores, ex-Homeland Security Official and founder of Securing America’s Promise. I am not a fan of long lines or really flying in general, but I am a fan of hearing from you every day. So don’t be shy, send over your comments, hit those like and subscribe buttons, leave us a five-star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts and share with your friends. We’ll be back after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Jane Coaston: I’m joined by Crooked’s Washington correspondent, Matt Berg, to talk about the big stories. Hey Matt. 

Matt Berg: Hey Jane. 

Jane Coaston: So, Matt, Trump says that Iran is negotiating with the U.S. even though Iran says there aren’t any talks at all. Here’s what Trump had to say about the latest alleged U.S. negotiations with Iran while also blaming/crediting Secretary of War/little boy Pete Hegseth for starting the war. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up and you said let’s do it because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. So we are now having really good discussions. They started last night, a little bit the night before that. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, you know things aren’t going great when Trump starts to not take credit for something. Which he does here. But Trump on Monday announced that he’s postponing strikes on Iranian power plants for five days, and that special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law extraordinaire Jared Kushner are in talks with the Iranians. His statements came after he promised to hit Iran’s energy infrastructure, like, ten seconds ago. Now, what led to this change of heart? Let me guess, it had something to do with, um money?

Matt Berg: That seems to be uh the rationale here. But again, like no one really knows what’s going on. I’ve been covering you know foreign affairs for a few years now, and I just have never seen a moment where everyone is collectively so confused on what the president is saying. Basically, Trump says that his envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, held talks. But shortly after he said that, the parliament leader tweeted that it was, quote, “fake news” that Trump is using to, quote, “manipulate the financial and oil markets.” Trump told reporters that a potential deal with Iran would prohibit nuclear weapons and could even involve regime change, which um does not seem like it’s gonna happen anytime soon. He also said that Iran wants to, quote, “settle the war.” Again, Iran has not showed any intention of that. And so that’s kind of why people are not sure what’s going on. And the bottom line here is that Trump is the President of the United States and throughout our entire history that has meant something during war when the president says a big statement that has the potential to move markets and we don’t even know if he’s telling the truth anymore. 

Jane Coaston: Speaking about uh markets, Trump’s announcement about those groundbreaking talks just happened to come right before the stock market opened on Monday, and the theory among a lot of experts is that Trump made a big threat over the weekend when markets are closed, and then he pulls back right before they open. In the near term, it worked. The price of oil fell and stocks rose, but by the end of the day, those gains slowed because these negotiations may or may not be happening at all. 

Matt Berg: This also kind of just shows where Trump’s brain is at. It’s like what matters the most it seems to be is how the markets do and maybe not exactly what the truth is. Again, maybe he is completely telling the truth, but I don’t think a lot of people are thinking that at the moment. 

Jane Coaston: Uh. In other news, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of allowing mail-in ballots to be counted in a handful of states after election day, during oral arguments on Monday. Millions of Americans rely on early or absentee voting to cast their votes, including Republicans. But Trump hates the practice because Democrats vote through the mail more often than Republicans, and of course he’s obsessed with voter fraud, which isn’t actually a real problem. Here’s what Maryland’s Democratic representative, Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law expert told you about the case on Monday. 

[clip of Jamie Raskin] The states know how to run elections and um the rule has always been in lots of states that you’ve got to mail your ballot in if you’re using a mail-in ballot before election day. And if you do and it arrives the day after election day or the day after that it’s still counted in the process, it’s very hard for me to see how that’s a matter of federal constitutional law or why there should be this major question kind of departure from what the traditional understanding has been. Uh. They’re trying to put the right to vote in a straight jacket and they’re trying to squeeze a lot of people out of the electoral process. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, should we be freaking out about the midterms yet? 

Matt Berg: I wouldn’t go that far exactly. I mean, there’s a lot of things that are happening right now, and a lot could also happen before November or just not happen at all. So for instance, a ruling on this is expected by late June. And I mean the conservative justices could change their minds on what this means and like how far reaching it could be, but at the same time, there’s problems with the United States Postal Service right now. Last week The Postmaster General warned that USPS could run out of cash within a year if Congress doesn’t allow it to borrow more money, and that has raised concerns about mail-in votes being on time. Trump is also effectively trying to bully Republicans into passing the SAVE Act, as we know. Um. That could, by some estimates, disenfranchise millions of people. Here’s what Jamie Raskin says Republicans are up to. 

[clip of Jamie Raskin] They’ve got no way to appeal to the public, so their whole plan is to shrink the electorate and make it more difficult for people to vote. That is a dreadful maneuver in a democracy where we should be upholding and celebrating everybody’s right to vote and the right of everybody to get their vote counted. 

Matt Berg: And so what I had just said and what he just said does sound you know pretty panicky, but a very important point here is that Trump has tried all these things and he has not succeeded yet in any of them. And he very well may not. 

Jane Coaston: Something else I’ve been watching, the jury is now deliberating in a trial over whether Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has been misleading users about the potential impact of social media on children. The prosecution in the case in New Mexico, which is where the case is taking place, argued that Meta was aware that children on its platforms were vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but Meta targeted children for engagement anyway. Meta’s lawyers dispute these claims and say the company incorporates protections for teens, but they acknowledge they can’t always catch absolutely everything immediately. Now, New Mexico prosecutors are asking the jury to fine the company more than $2 billion for consumer protection violations, which sounds like a ton of money, but for comparison’s sake, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is worth about $210 billion. 

Matt Berg: Yeah, that is a drop in the bucket compared to all the cash that he is rolling in. But I mean, in serious note here, the impact of this case could be huge. Historically, tech companies have been protected um from liability for things that people post on their platforms. But the thing that’s different with this is that prosecutors aren’t really arguing that Meta should be held accountable for things posted online. It’s more about, you know, algorithms that push out this addictive material. Um. If you’ve ever been on TikTok or or Facebook or anything, you understand that the algorithm works in mysterious ways. Courts are often the ones to hold companies accountable when Congress is too slow, and Congress has been extremely slow when it comes to regulating social media companies at all. I don’t know what the solution here is to teach lawmakers about TikTok, Vine or whatever, but I don’t know if I want to see them doing the floss or the nae nae anytime soon. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, I want to welcome you to 2026. No one flosses anymore, but, uh, Matt, thanks so much for hanging out. 

Matt Berg: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: And that’s the news. [music break] 

[AD BREAK] 

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, let Donald Trump know hey, there’s a lot going on, maybe lock in a little, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how in the midst of a war with Iran, and economic strife, and plummeting polls, Trump found time to visit Graceland, the home of the late Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee, where he asked the important questions. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Could I have taken him in a fight? 

[clip of unnamed speaker at Graceland 1] I don’t know, you might. 

[clip of unnamed speaker at Graceland 2] I think he would have been respectful enough to let you win. 

[clip of unnamed speaker at Graceland 1] Yes, he probably would. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] He would?

Jane Coaston: Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and what are we even doing here? [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We have production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.