President Donald Trump was asked Monday whose idea it was to deploy ICE agents to 13 airports around the country. The president responded that it was his idea, but he also went on a bizarre tangent about the invention of paperclips that has left people scratching their heads.
“Whose idea was it to put ICE in airports?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked as Trump was about to board a plane from Florida to Memphis.
“Mine. That was mine,” Trump insisted. “That was like the paper clip. You know the story of the paper clip? A hundred and eighty-two years ago, a man discovered the paper clip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?”
Collins was likely asking the question because CNN reported Monday that Trump actually got the idea to put ICE agents at airports from Fox News. Many of Trump’s ideas seem to come from constantly watching TV, and Fox is by far his favorite.
It’s unclear what Trump was trying to argue when referring to paper clips. It seems that he believes there’s some parallel because using ICE was such an “obvious” idea. But ICE isn’t supposed to be the president’s personal army to be deployed on a whim.
The earliest possible claim for an invention vaguely resembling the modern paper clip is from around 1867, according to Scientific American. And 182 years ago was 1844, so it’s very likely that Trump is just making up numbers and facts he half-remembered from a TV special in the 1990s. The modern paper clip design dates closer to the late 19th century and has several inventors.
The 79-year-old has shown significant signs of cognitive impairment in recent months, often misspeaking and rambling about unrelated topics.
Trump told Collins that he called up his border czar, Tom Homan, about using ICE at airports, who thought it was a great idea.
“Then I saw today there were some masks on. I didn’t think the masks were appropriate,” said Trump. “I put out a statement, and I asked them, ‘Would it be possible to take off the mask?’ Because they should wear a mask when they’re dealing with the murderers and the thugs left and let into our country.”
The use of masks has been central to the fight over funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But Trump doesn’t seem to think masks are necessary at airports, even though his first post on the subject over the weekend suggested ICE would be conducting immigration enforcement in an extremely racist manner. Trump said the ICE agents would be focusing on immigrants, particularly those coming from Somalia.
The push to put ICE agents in airports has the hallmarks of an “own the libs” move, but many mainstream news outlets have been trying to characterize it as an earnest attempt to relieve the long lines that have grown at airports over recent weeks. TSA officers have been working without pay for over a month now, and the call-out rate was 11.76% on Sunday.
The call-out rate for some airports is much worse than the national average, including New Orleans (42.3%), Atlanta (41.5%), and Houston (39.1%). But it seems unlikely that ICE will help with any of that, as countless social media videos show the agents just standing around, not doing much.
The 13 airports where ICE has been deployed, according to CNN, include:
- Atlanta (ATL)
- Chicago (ORD)
- Cleveland (CLE)
- Houston (HOU)
- Ft. Myers (RSW)
- New Orleans (MSY)
- New York (JFK)
- New York-LaGuardia (LGA)
- Newark (EWR)
- Philadelphia (PHL)
- Phoenix (PHX)
- Pittsburgh (PIT)
- San Juan, PR (SJU)
One video that went viral on Monday showed ICE agents arresting a woman in San Francisco, though the video was filmed Sunday and doesn’t seem to be related to Trump’s most recent deployment. ICE has been terrorizing immigrants at airports for some time now, long before Trump decided they should go stand around to “help” with TSA.
@argw6 ICE at SFO 3/22 10pm I’m not from the area- if anyone knows what organizations in the area I can send this to to help identify this woman please let me know. (I called SF rapid response network but no one answered and I left a message) SF Police shielded these unidentified men as they illegally detained a woman with a young child at SFO airport #ice #sanfrancisco #cbp #iceout #bayarea #icesanfrancisco #sfo
♬ original sound – argw
Some of the worst wait times in the country appear to be at the airports with the highest rates of TSA officers calling out. The website for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport doesn’t even list times anymore, instead just advising passengers to arrive at least four hours early.
Even if you show up three hours early for your flight, there’s still a chance you might not make it through security in time. And it seems unlikely that this flood of ICE agents is going to help fix that. The only solution is for Congress to make a deal, but Republicans have repeatedly rejected funding proposals put forward by the Democrats. The reason? According to NBC News, Trump told Republicans on Capitol Hill to reject any deal.
One might argue that the chaos is the point. Or paper clips are the point. With a new war in Iran, skyrocketing gas prices, and a stock market that seems to believe every word Trump says, we really don’t know what’s going on anymore.
