Congress Tells Ted Cruz NO To His Request For Special VIP Treatment At Airports

Several months ago, Republican Senator Ted Cruz attached a proposal to a funding bill that would have allowed any lawmakers, Cabinet members, or federal judges to get extra security and VIP treatment with security detail at airports across the country if the lawmaker was receiving threats. But Congress this week said NO WAY to that idea, and stripped the proposal from their version of the legislation, leaving Cruz to have to travel like a commoner. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what happened.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Back in February, Republican Senator Ted Cruz put forth a proposal as part of the funding bill for the, uh, FAA. And this proposal would've created special privileges, essentially VIP treatment for any lawmaker federal judge or cabinet member who, uh, you know, gets a lot of threats. So what Ted Cruz's proposal would do is say if you're one of these people and you're getting a lot of threats, well we're gonna create at every airport in this country, right? Spend hundreds of millions of dollars. You are gonna get your own special check-in. You are gonna get your own private security screening area, and you are gonna be accompanied by armed TSA agents throughout your entire travel experience because, you know, Ted Cruz doesn't want to be stuck in the same security line as us commoners. He doesn't want to have to take his shoes off and put his bag in the bin, or maybe not put the bag in the bin.

Who knows? 'cause they changed the rules like every day. But he didn't want to go through that. He wanted the VIP treatment. He wanted people walking around him so that the commoners couldn't approach him and tell him what a scumbag he is. And then this week, democratic representative Benny Thompson, decided, no, we're not gonna do that. And Thompson managed to remove Ted Cruz's proposal from the house version of the bill that is now headed for a full floor vote. So unfortunately for Ted Cruz, his request to be treated as a VIP in every airport in this country has effectively been denied. And by the way, it's not just because Benny Thompson was like, no, I wanna screw over Ted Cruz. You see, the reality of it, as I had previously mentioned, is that this would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars, at least tens of millions way into well over a hundred million to set these things up.

'cause you would still have to have those big scanners, you know, for the bags to go through the X-ray machines. You'd still have to have the full body scanners and you would have to have more TSA agents on duty to man these private battle stations. And then even more on duty to just walk around the airport with you while you go and get a Cinnabon and the Ts a's like, yeah, we don't have the manpower to, to do that. Um, this would put an unnecessary strain on our already strained organization here. So please, Congress do not give into Ted Cruz's wacky demand. But let's be real about this. This isn't about security. It never was with Ted Cruz. I mean, Ted Cruz has never had to like run for his life in an airport. I mean, honestly, like people have to go through security to get in there. We know they're not carrying

Weapons or anything like that. They can't hurt you. I mean, that doesn't mean they can't necessarily hurt you. We've seen fights at airports, but not with lawmakers. What Ted Cruz didn't want to happen was just average people walking up to him in an airport, like I said, saying, you're a scumbag. We don't like you. That's all Ted Cruz wanted to avoid. He can't stand criticism, and he would rather have the federal government dole out tens of millions of dollars so that he doesn't have to face criticism than to just suck it up for a few minutes while he waits to get on his plane. Luckily, this will not be a reality in the United States, and Ted Cruz will still have to sit there with the rest of us commoners.