03-23-26 Part Two - Privatize TSA

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He is there. Currently, I'm Gary McNamara. Welcome to Good Morning. Just check here, I just want to see...

“Ice agents will not be wearing the TSA uniform.”

-All right. Okay, just check that out. Now, it came from Google AI. -Yeah. -Right, yeah. But the way that airplane crash on the... It was a tarmac or whatever.

They say runway four, but they didn't say the plane was taken off. The fire truck at the airport, like at 24 miles an hour. Just the news saying two people were killed, but I don't see that from CNN or Fox. -I haven't seen that anywhere else, but I did see it.

That's John Solomon's news organization. Just the news, again, saying that there are some injuries and also two fatalities in this Air Canada plane crash.

It's a collision, basically, that the airplane collided

with a fire truck that belongs to the port authority of New York. A New Jersey, New York and New Jersey. And that happened, again, at LaGuardia. So around 11, 40 p.m. local time. So we'll follow this.

But that it's, you know, sometimes when you hear that a plane on a runway collides with either another plane or something else, then it's like a wing clipping it. But this is a very serious accident. You can see by the pictures.

There's videos coming from that taken by amateurs. Witnesses that are there. But lots of pictures coming in from LaGuardia on that accident. Yeah, that's the first thing I thought when I saw the story. It's, you know, it said a ground accident hit a fight.

You know, you, I saw that there were injuries early on. But yeah. It wasn't until I saw the one picture where it looks like the, to me, it looks like the entire flight deck was wiped out. It, that's what it looks like.

It looks like it was crushed completely. Yeah. Yeah. So if there was, if there was a loss of life, one might think, if that's true from just the news,

that is where it would happen. Because I can't imagine somebody being in the pilot or co-pilot, see that plane in surviving. Right. It could be wrong, but it looks like it,

it's not there. It's crushed completely. Right. According to just the news.com, the incident took place just before midnight on Sunday,

local time, social media post show. The aircraft suffered severe damage to his nose as, as you mentioned Gary. And the aircraft itself propped up.

“And that's what you see in the, in the photos.”

The nose of the plane is, is, is propped up. Um, audio from air traffic controllers, again, from the website, just the news.com. Showed they warned truck one that would have been the, the fire truck to stay out of the path of air candidates,

and the press flight AC8646, which was arriving in New York for Montreal. Meanwhile, there are some airports that are having no problems with TSA, people showing up to work.

That's because they're not TSA. You've got to wait a minute here. John funds column in national review. As TSA chaos spreads, some airports have solved the security screening problem.

Unsurprisingly, the private sector gets the job done. If ever there was a real life example of why airport security needs to be turned over to the private sector, it's the mess the flying public is facing this week. As we have, as we have seen,

the Department of Homeland Security is interrupted.

“Transportation Security Administration agents pay check.”

Many are there for calling in sick, taking side jobs, or finding they can't afford to go to work because of child care, or the cost of commuting. It's only going to get worse this week. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CNN on Friday.

If a deal is not cut, you're going to see what's happening today. Look like child's play. He said Friday.

He said small airports could shut down entirely.

If it's staffing crisis persists, or as air traffic controllers are paid through the Department of Transportation, TSA agents are part of DHS, which cannot issue checks. But the disaster differs from previous government wide shutdowns.

Some airports have no shortage of security agents, and are not suffering long lines or wait times. These are the 20 airports that have jumped through the TSA's high bureaucratic scoop, and are allowed to use private contractors to conduct screening.

Among them are Kansas City and get this now.

“Who's using the private sector for screening and airports?”

San Francisco International Airport. Security personnel of these airports are being paid normally, and showing up for work as expected. It's time to make this exception in their port security. The rule.

The Washington Post editorial board notes. A government agency regulating itself creates conflicts of interest. International Civil Aviation Organization standard say that security and providers, excuse me, security providers and regulators should be independent. Major countries around the world follow this best practice.

Canada, Britain, Germany, France, and Spain use private contractors for passenger screening. Even in other countries where a government is the provider, it's rarely a national bureaucratic agency doing the screening. President Trump is reportedly ordered US immigration and customs enforcement agents to report to airports on Monday to reduce the lengthy delays and security checkpoints.

But this means that ICE will be diverted from its important border enforcement work. Moreover, ICE agents will likely need time to learn airport procedures, and some local and public and airport officials might resist the agency's help. They could try to block the president's move by claiming that it poses a risk of enabling ICE overreach, increasing the likelihood of ethnic profiling or turning airports into immigration enforcement checkpoints.

Instead of repurposing ICE, Trump's additional blanket waiver of the TSA's usual rules and regulations to allow all airports to hire private security screeners effectively.

“Well, added you should ask Congress to vote on a permanent fixed to replicate the success of some foreign airports.”

Germany's Frankfurt Airport and United Kingdom's Heathrow, for example, are able to serve as major worldwide hubs in part because they employ private firms that safely expedite the transfer of millions of passengers. So there you go. You know, it's a, something we talked about for the longest time, privatizing and privatized TSA, privatized airport security, not TSA, but airport security.

This would be one less worry on the whole shutdown thing. But the bureaucracy that runs through it is also part of that great inefficiency. And which means what? That it becomes at any moment a political football. Yep.

From the perspective of the airport, the decision to take the task is to take a lot of time. Stop, leave the recruiting spirals. I'm Adam of Stepstone.de/Alljobs. Stepstone, I'm Fachti-Richting and Talent-Effinden for all the jobs. Tired of partisan noise? America's more divided than ever, but independent Americans is adding the light to contrast all that he. Independent Americans, daily news with Army veteran Paul Reikoff.

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Independent Americans, from belief, follow and listen on your favorite platform. And, you know, we see, but I can see, I can see the airlines really pushing, you know, for example, you know, American Airlines dominates DFW.

I was reading, I saw something from a few months ago saying 82 percent of the people that fly at a DFW are American Airlines.

American Airlines and DFW in the state of Texas could say, we need to stop this now. We can't have this continue. Now that it's been used twice, we cannot trust that it won't be used again. Not the politics of it. Right.

And get to the profit mode of it for the airlines right now. And, you know, you start closing down airports, boom.

“But I mean, you're going to have no, I think, don't be surprised.”

You know, maybe for the future, this would be a good thing that came out of this is airports start saying. Because American has tremendous amount of influence as we all know at DFW. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think really can't go anywhere else.

But still, it's like we can't do this.

I mean, there's a great deal of cooperation between American and DFW to begin with.

Their headquarters is here. DFW airport. We're talking about. And so I wouldn't be surprised with that pressure's on saying, we can't allow this to continue. Now, John Fund says a presence and say higher private security, not you couldn't do that tomorrow.

Right. They would have to be a transition that would happen. That probably would take a, you know, a period of months. How long I don't know. I guess we'd have to see how long it took Kansas City and San Francisco to do it.

But those airports did it. Yep. If they did it, you've got the examples. If you have, I may do this say. Was it 20 or 50?

Hmm.

Airports did I say before?

Well, the fact that they've done it and haven't changed it back. Yeah. Tells you. Because what would be the great concern?

“The first concern would be, well, is it going to be as secure?”

Are they going to be as good as thorough? Because we can talk about taxpayer dollars. This taxpayer dollars. Well, look, we have there already have the fee. It's involved.

Right. And so you already have this is, you know, that's kind of a wash when it comes to cost. Now let's talk about creating the efficiency. And again, a profit mode of that it's also attached to security. It has to be done right.

And if you have dozens of airports doing it now, you already have, you've already got the schematic. Hmm. Yeah. You know how it works. And you don't need the beauty of this is the laws already there.

If you jump through the, if you fulfill the requirements, you get it. Right. Yeah. Exactly.

“You have all these airports that have already done it.”

Yeah. Again, you can sit there go, okay. There's a schematic. Let's go do it. Hmm.

We've got the blueprint. Right. And the Democrats can't stop it. It's not like, okay, we need Congress to pass it. The laws are already there.

You can bypass it. Right. Well, again, you see this again, as you mentioned, there would be a number of, not just the airlines, but also shipping companies. Cargo companies.

And, you know, in terms of creating efficiencies that airports all together, while they don't, of course, I mean, they have to screen cargo, but they're, it's not the same as screening humans. But they do want an efficient process at an airport all together. So you think of a new PS and, by the way, American and other airlines are involved in the freight business as well. You know, so there's a terrific profit motive.

20 airports have done it. 20 airports have done it. Right. 20 airports have done it. And including Kansas City in San Francisco, which means you've got a medium-sized city of Kansas City.

And you've got a huge city, San Francisco. Yeah. I guess we'll see if it catches fire. I mean, if this gets the conversation going, but I, you know, again, we've been talking about this for years and talk radio about privatizing airport security.

everybody's attention because it's, oh my gosh.

“Well, it's the stories of Atlanta over the weekend.”

First of all, Atlanta on any given day, right, on a good day, everybody knows.

It's the business and it's just, it's a nightmare. But what they say, 150 something minutes. Yeah. Oh my gosh. The better part of three hours.

You know what I did? Because I have a passport and a, and TSA pre-check. Hmm. I didn't even know it. I just happened to see it in a story.

I was going through my fungal. What's this? You might be able to get through quicker at DFW. I'm like, how? Contactless lines.

Right. There's one. Let me just see.

Where do I normally go in?

Oh, 821. They have one there. What is this thing? If you have a passport and you have TSA pre-check. There's another line you can go in, which you don't need to pull out your ID.

They scan your phone or, yeah, they scan your phone, I guess. You know, the app on your phone. Boom. The face through. Yeah.

So, yeah. Well, they say it's a different line. I haven't seen the line. And I was just a couple of weeks ago. Right.

Now, you're flying the end of this week. I'm flying this week. There's three weeks. Right. Well, it might be Thursday afternoon.

Friday morning. I don't know what it's, I mean, I'm scheduled to fly out very early on Thursday morning. Yeah. I already told who knows what would happen in three weeks. For the time I fly out for my dad's 100 birthday.

I already warm my family. I said, might not be able to come back. Well, I don't fly as often as you. And it's usually for business.

And, you know, then your concern is, you know, first of all, I want to get there.

For all the truckers out there at the Mid-America Trucking Show coming up this Thursday Friday Saturday. And little bit Kentucky. We're going to be out there. It's going to be great. It's at the Kentucky Expo Center.

Actually, right across the street from the airport and little and so to be a great event. But I go there every year. There's two things going on every year when I go at the end of March. Basketball and college basketball and the truck show. So then the concern is, and this is where everybody traveling.

All right. Let's say I have, because everybody's wondering, you know, it's going to be a shutdown.

“Is there going to be, are they going to start shutting airports down?”

That's been in the news. You know, the question. And, or are they going to fund it? Or are they going to fund TSA? Only.

But, okay. You'll wait and line for however long going out. Well, are you going to be able to get home? Is there going to be a delay coming home? You know, it's so just one thing.

Louisville and Kentucky both eliminated this weekend. Yeah. Oh, no. No. Yeah.

No, I already saw that. Yeah. And the gators. Or the. Yeah.

Yeah. They've got the guy that's six. Is it six feet nine? No. They showed him next to a guy who was like six eight.

You know, I actually ate some gator over the weekend. Some fried gator. Man, I didn't get that gator. I didn't get chewed up like that. Sorry, gators.

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Because now that it's happened twice, it has now become a political weapon that people believe that the Democrats will use.

It's Democrats who have used it. And so when you talk about individual airports, it becomes a local issue. And it's not based on federal politics. It's based on the fact that we don't want to wait at the airport.

“So now the local media starts asking questions. Hey, how could this change, right?”

And the conversation continues. 1-866-90-red eye call with your reaction Red Eye Radio. And he is our crotty and I'm Gary McNamara. Download our Red Eye Radio app today and you can listen when you choose. Yeah, so I really think that you're going to have

you know, local airport authorities, transportation authorities, airports, airlines.

I think you're really going to see. I'll put it this way. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a push. Because now that this has been used twice and the second time has been worse in the first time with the TSA agents. Now that they know they can see the game plan, the game plans are already out there.

“They see Kansas City. They see San Francisco airport.”

Yeah, private sector runs TSA. They're not affected at all by it. You're going to see and plus the fact that you can have Republicans out there pounding for this to happen, but by simply saying what, you know, we saw over the weekend, which was, you know, that fee that you pay. You pay a fee, $11.20 for TSA, every round trip you take.

And even if you buy, you know, use your miles to get a ticket, there's always had fee, $11.20.

I always wondered, where's that come from? Yeah, I'm getting the free flight once 11 bucks, you know, I don't know. But it's TSA. And so they can make the case that look, it's time to go private. Here are the airports that have done it. You can even say liberal San Francisco has done it.

“Yeah, as as privatized TSA, it's safe. Do it. We cannot allow the federal government.”

And you make it a local issue. It doesn't have to be Republican versus Democrat. It's the big airport, which is in major cities, a huge economic driver. Yeah. In regular cities, it's a big economic driver. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we can't have this anymore. We cannot have this disruption. And so we're not going to allow it to happen.

We are going to pay attention. We don't want to pay attention to what the federal government is arguing about. We want to make sure that people can fly out of our airport. Yep. Every tourist destination. Well, it's going to promote that. It is about the, you know, it's about customer experience. But that's really when it comes down to it. We need you to have a good customer experience.

Because, you know, you see it. I mean, well, the end of every flight. We know you have a choice when flying. Thank you for flying our airline. And of course, some destinations is like, we know there's really no choice, no other choice. Nobody else flies here. But no, it's that whole customer experience thing goes into.

And think about this back in the day. Flying was a luxury. You know, if you were talking vacation, you were getting in the station wagon. The family was getting in the station wagon. You were getting the road. Today, it's almost as if it's a right. I have a right to get on there playing and fly and be somewhere in three hours.

You know, I mean, it's, it's that level of expectation. Like, oh, no, no. There should be a, a smooth process. And that's exactly what people want. Because they pay a lot of money to get there. Still a bargain in my mind. But you pay a lot of money, get from A to B. And so if you introduce this story, you brought up earlier.

The local news, you know, because if these local cities start talking about this, having this conversation local. New stations are going to start saying, hey, this is an option in our town.

You have 20 airports that I've converted. Why can't we?

“To implement private sector screening, the airport must apply for the transportation”

security administrations, screening partnership program. The process requires submitting an application to the local federal security director receiving approval usually within 60 days and allowing up to 12 months for contract procurement and four to six months for transition. Airport operators must submit the formal request through a TSA website.

So that's the airport operators do what you do it individually.

The application is reviewed. I mean, you do it at these hubs.

Yeah, you know, Atlanta with Delta, Chicago with United DFW with American. Yeah, yeah, if those like it, if the hubs all kick in.

“And by the way, that would be the loudest conversation naturally.”

You know what I mean locally? That's, that's going to be where the loudest conversations are. And that's what gets the attention. Now, I can see in liberal, you know, for example, in New York state, I'm thinking about how, you know, where I fly into Buffalo, how liberal it is.

You might get pushed back there. Yeah, but if they haven't seen, I don't think they've seen any huge delays in Buffalo. You can get away with keeping the TSA, you know, keeping the TSA. Sure. But it's all about customer experience. And if the customer experiences what you're seeing in Atlanta right now,

that's not going to cut it. Yeah. But it's a, the, the application again. The status notification set within 60 days, just trying to think anything else here. Private security screeners must follow all federal security procedures, and regulations essentially functioning as contractors under TSA supervision.

Currently, about 20 plus airports in the US use private screening, including San Francisco International Airport. Just so you know, I got that from the AI Google, but all of their information game from TSA.gov. Yeah. Okay. So. Because we all look at this, you see anything else here, I'm looking at.

And right here is private screening versus federal screening is the TSA screening partnership program. Right for your airport, this was in 2025, the fiscal year, 2026 presidential budget request for the TSA proposes a significant increase for the federal aviation administration operations as well as facility and radar upgrades.

However, the proposal also request a large budget reduction for the essential air service reducing funding for transportation security officers.

While TSA is responsible for conducting airport screening at most airports in the United States, private security screening has existed since 2004.

“So it's there. And they go through everything that you need to get it.”

Same thing here. So. Why private airport security screening? And this comes from BOS Security.com. As more Americans rely on airport for more travel, many flyers are growing frustrated with delays. Long waits to get through security lines and TSA security failures, Canada and most European countries.

Use private airport screeners and US airports did two prior to the TSA's creation following the 9/11 terror attacks. While many worry that a move towards privatization could negatively affect screening services or many reports that suggest the opposite. In 2015, ABC News reported that undercover tests conducted by Homeland Security did not yield positive results under cover investigators were able to smuggle fake explosives and bad weapons. Through security checkpoints in 95% of trials in the Homeland Security Inspector General's report at that time, federal TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests.

While still under federal supervision, a 2015 report from the governmental from the GAO found that passenger screeners and private airports performed better than their federal counterparts. Through 2011 study by the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee compared the productivity of TSA screening and SPP screening, the study found that airports would private screening were significantly more productive than TSA processing and average of 65% more passengers per screeners. So there you go. So I mean, those are all the things that are going to come out if they decide to do it.

Well, again, it will be about the pressure here, but it will also be about the fallout even after the the pressure is gone with whatever, you know, they're going to do on funding.

Because it's, you know, as we just pointed out, it's not going to happen overnight, it can't happen overnight, but how do you avoid this whole political football thing?

“Well, this is, this is, this is the key right here.”

The key is if it was just once, okay, it was just once here, they're not going to do it again because it was such negative activity to it.

Now that they've done it a second time and gotten to the point where we have gotten, we're now it's on the news and you see the lines of Atlanta, we all know it's coming.

Anybody who's flying this week is thinking about it. Everybody is. This is a point where airports go, all right, now this is something that they're going to use in the future. If they're going to, you know, we know that when government shuts down, they love. Let's close down the parks first. Let's close down when people use first.

Yeah, right, you know, let's let's not cut our salaries to see the one senator from Hawaii. When John Kennedy was up there to promote that we don't get paid if DHS continues to be, you know, the parts of DHS continue to be shut down. And what's the name, senator Schatz from Hawaii, they ran in and said, no, I vote against and ran right back out.

“And he goes, what the hell happened to him, ran in and ran out?”

It's like, no, Democrats want to get paid. Republicans are saying, we shouldn't get paid during this Democrats want to get paid. Right. That was just, I first don't laughing for that. Let's hilarious. Oh, and we can't forget about this. Yeah, we can't forget the, the death of Chuck Norris. You know, that was sad. I was really sad.

If, if ever there was a man, a myth and a legend, all in one, that's Chuck Norris. He had his own culture. Yeah, he really did. I thought about that. He does. Yeah, but, and then I've seen so many videos of him with people out in the street over the weekend where they'd sit there and start telling Chuck Norris jokes. And, and he would say it right back with him. He'd go, have you heard this one? And burst out laughing. Yeah, and Christine Brinkley, who did the total gym.

Uh, extra thing thing with him said, you know, they were different politically. She goes, what a gem of the man. She goes, we used to laugh about, okay, we disagree on politics, but we both agree on the total gym. Right. Yeah. But she said, you know, that he loved the jokes too. And, and you saw him all over the place. And I think that to me, for somebody like him, by repeating all the jokes. Yeah. Of Chuck Norris. Yeah. Right.

“I think you honor him. I really think one of the best legacies you can leave of a life is people laughing.”

Do you hear this one? Do you hear this one? Do you hear this one? Yeah. Right. You hear this one?

I mean, I never heard the one, and it was so simple about, you know, how powerful Chuck Norris is.

Chuck Norris told a woman to do something, and she'd listen. I like the ones where Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups. He pushes the earth down. Yes. Well, I was with my buddies that are reunion guys. I've known most of my life since I was a kid. And we were just kind of, when the news, we were kind of came up in conversation. And we just traded off the Chuck Norris jokes, you know.

His younger brother, Aaron Norris, who stuntman did a little bit of acting produced some films and TV. They worked together, but they were from what I understand very, very close as you would expect. And that's a full, think about that. That's a full life. First of all, the discipline that it takes, you know, for the martial arts. That gets great respect. But beyond that, great discipline in his craft.

He also, especially in his later years, his convictions. But you know, he never, what was interesting is he didn't have to come off as someone who was loud or anything else.

No, you know, he really kind of have to soft-spoken mannerism about himself, but very strong convictions, very strong punches. But I'd hate to be on the receiving end. But certainly the man, the myth, the legend. We are right, I radio.

We are when I radio and he's hurting, I'm hearing Mac.

The one thing their response to Chuck Norris' death. And it was interesting because Variety Magazine said Chuck Norris was a great action star, but politics may overshadow his legacy from Variety. And they said, oh, that's the same thing. The Variety wrote about Rob Ryder dying.

Yeah. And it was like there was nothing in it about the, in Rob Ryder's obituary at all.

“The best thing is the number of people that wrote about the term overshadowed and said and just used the jokes.”

Yeah, sure Chuck Norris cannot be overshadowed because darkness doesn't dare approach him. And then the other when I saw was actually Chuck Norris has been dead for 20 years.

Death was afraid to tell him. You know what I mean? There's just so many of those.

Well, I made one up to my buddies. I said, uh, uh, dear Chuck, just remember when you get up to having that Jesus on our side. So, you know what I mean?

“Death once had a near Chuck Norris experience.”

It was just for a great legacy of, uh, the love of morality and humor he left. Yeah. This is Red Eye Radio on Westwood One. The Dan Bontino Show.

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I got a lot of stuff. This is the kind of stuff. It's real. May not hear this anywhere else. Hard truths. There's a lot of stuff to talk about that. You think it's going to open a lot of eyes and a lot of ignorators are going to get shut down. And a bold perspective, no one else can offer.

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