TJ Walker describes a TSA crisis where 40-50% of agents are calling out sick, creating four-hour security lines and a $1 billion payroll shortfall. Assaults on workers surged 500%. Walker argues the political response is all press conferences instead of fixing the problem, and compares it to a pattern of failed leadership.
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Ultimize. TSA wait times are now the longest in US history according to, well, everybody, everybody in the media and everyone who's been to an airport this week. People are waiting up to 4 hours just to get through security. 4 hours. At that point, you're not traveling, you live there. Now you should be paying rent. You should be able to change your address to Gate B12. Here's why this is happening. As many as 40 to 50% of TSA agents are calling out sick. Sick. Before anyone says these workers are lazy, let me give you one more fact. They're not getting paid. Do you show up if nobody pays you? I don't. Nearly $1 billion in paychecks has been missed during this shutdown. So apparently when you stop paying people, they stop showing up. Oh no, this is shocking only if you've never hired a human being before. We now have TSA agents sleeping in their cars and even selling plasma just to survive. This is always comforting when you're about to get on a plane. The person responsible for your safety just sold bodily fluids to make rent. And here's my favorite stat: there's been a 500% increase in assaults on TSA workers because nothing calms people down like standing in a 4-hour line with no clear communication and no end in sight. Politicians are doing what politicians do— they're blaming each other. One side says it's funding. The other side says it's policy, everyone's talking, and that is the problem. But let me be clear, there's no false equivalency here. There is a problem coming from one side. I'll dig deeper on that in just a moment. If people are standing in line for 4 hours, your communication strategy has already failed. You do not need a better press conference, you need a shorter line. Now, none of this should surprise anyone. This is the completely predictable outcome of putting someone in charge of the most complex organization on Earth who has failed at virtually everything he's ever touched. Let's just review. Trump Casinos, bankrupt. Trump University, shut down for fraud. Trump Vodka, gone. Trump Steaks, gone. Multiple real estate deals collapsed. This is not bad luck. This is a pattern. He starts things, he plunders them. He leaves chaos behind. And now we're surprised that the federal government is falling apart? To be fair, Trump has made exactly 2 smart business decisions in his entire life. Number 1, he was born to a wealthy father who was actually a successful businessman and who started giving Trump what amounts to a $200,000 a year salary as a child, as a toddler. Yeah, that's what he was paid as a child. This is not entrepreneurship. This is an allowance with the board of directors. Number 2, he made the brilliant decision to play a successful, obnoxious businessman on a television show. That's it. That is the resume. Oh, and I should note he was president before and had more jobs lost under his tenure than any president of the United States since Herbert Hoover. That's his resume. And somehow millions of people look at that and said, yes, this is exactly what we need running the United States government. That makes as much sense as hiring George Clooney to perform brain surgery on you because he once played a doctor on ER. He's charming. He looks great on camera. I'm sure he can deliver a compelling monologue right before the operation. That doesn't mean you want him holding the scalpel. So here we are, 4-hour TSA lines, unpaid workers, airports on the brink of shutting down, millions more travelers coming with no system ready to handle them. And the people in charge are still talking, still spinning, still pretending this is normal. It's not. Normal. It's exactly what happens when you confuse branding with competence and television with reality. And now we're all standing in line for 4 hours to find out. Okay, folks, this is, this is an unmitigated disaster of epic proportion. Sadly, it is completely predictable. If you want to go to an airport and not stand in line for 5 hours, it's time for new management. And I don't mean a management of Delta. They're doing some good things. I don't mean a manager of your local airport. I don't mean a manager of the Federal Transportation Organization or the FAA. I mean the top management of the entire country. It's time to change, or at least give it a new board of directors, which you could do Election Day in 2026. Ultimize.
