Republicans appear to be split. it is unclear how negotiations are going to move forward. one adviser to the president said that privately this was a humiliating loss for a man that doesn t often lose. thank you. the longest shutdown in history is over, but the pain and the impact runs deep. the financial stress still lingering for hundreds of thousands of these federal workers missing two paychecks. i want to talk to alex, a tsa screener at the world s busiest airport in atlanta. thanks for being with us. you have four children, five grandchildren. what is on your mind now and how are you feeling about things today? i m kind of feeling a little frustrated. even though we are opening the federal government back up, it is temporarily. what you are doing is kicking the can down the road. we are trying to plan and live our lives, not by 21 days. the big question now is when do you get your paycheck?
Impact runs deep. the financial stress still lingers for hundreds of thousands of these federal workers missing two paychecks. we want to talk to alex hutchen, a tsa screener at the world s busiest airport in atlanta and alex, thanks for being with us. i know you have four children, five grandchildren, and what s on your mind now, and how are you feeling about things today? ana, i m kind of feeling a little frustrated even though we re opening the government back up temporarily, so pretty much, what you re doing is, you re kicking the can down the road. we are trying to plan and live our live, not by 21 days. the big question now is when do you get your paycheck, are you getting any official guidance from the agency on a firm date when you will finally get paid? as of this morning, they sent out a text message letting everyone know that we should, if funding goes properly, we should start collecting our money by around thursday. thursday? not till thursday. i know, right? w
And our audience some sound from a tsa screener who works at lax. i m a single father, and it hasn t affected me that bad, but there are people here that have more than one child, and now they re going they are talking about trying to find something else, something that pays them temporarily. arthel: i mean, that s real. you know, what are you hearing from the workers? i mean what are they talking about to you? well, i just traveled through a couple of airports yesterday, and i took time to talk to the tsa agents pointedly, and they are being very professional in their job. they are trying to hold up their standards, but, you know, in the back of their mind, i m sure they are thinking about what s going to happen if i go home, what is the bank going to say if i miss my payment on my mortgage, or do i have enough food for my family?
Is the most serious threat the president faced in my view. it is interesting. until this point, nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house has been putting on the brakes to slow roll the idea of impeachment here. do you think that it speeds up as of now? i think people have to look at it in a serious way. the notion that the president would direct someone to lie and not tell the truth is not inconsistent with the behavior of the president who has had a difficult relationship with the truth. no one read the story and thought, oh, this is impossible. people read that story and thought, it s consistent with everything that we have seen and learned about this investigation and more importantly about the conduct of this president. all right. congressman, thank you so much for being with us. thank you for having me. the government shutdown continues to hurt real people. a tsa screener is here next to explain how the impasse is affecting millions of passengers.
What you have to do is replace some people, i think. if you have that bad of performance, you have got to be able to get rid of the poor performers and use that as leverage to say, perform or else. that s not happening because first of all, they are federal employees, nearly impossible to fire one. then the obama administration authorized them to become federal public employee union members. virtually impossible to fire these poor performers. what if you put in the contract, if you re a tsa screener, if you re standing there watching for bombs and you let a become through, that s it, you can leave. we will have this agreement in advance. it seems rather fair. well, it does seem fair and i think you will see a number of opinion leaders on capitol hill begin to say, maybe we got it wrong right after 9/11. maybe it should be a shared public-private responsibility and. a whole federal responsibility. and maybe the federal employees