More than a dozen airports across the country are refusing to display a video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and any travel disruptions that may result from it. Representatives for the airports said that the video was overly partisan.

“It is TSA’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” Noem said in the roughly 30-second video. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

The list of airports includes the major airports serving the New York metropolitan area, as well as major airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, as well as several other regional airports.

Airports Cite Policies

While some airports cited internal or municipal policies that barred politically partisan messaging for preventing them from showing the video, others pointed to state and federal law. Kara Hansen, a spokesperson for the Port of Portland in Oregon, said in a statement that the video violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law intended to maintain a nonpartisan federal workforce and to limit political activities of federal employees. Hansen said the Transportation Security Administration asked Port of Portland to show the video Thursday.

Ken Jenkins, the Westchester County, New York, executive and a Democrat, said in a statement that the video was “inappropriate, unacceptable and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials.”

“The PSA politicizes the impacts of a federal government shutdown on TSA operations, and the county finds the tone to be unnecessarily alarmist — particularly as it relates to operations at Westchester County Airport,” he added.

Jenkins said that the TSA requested replacing a previous video about the new Real ID requirement, which has been playing at screens near TSA security checkpoints at airports across the country, with Noem’s shutdown announcement.

Keith Jeffries, a vice president of K2 Security Screening Group and a former TSA federal security director at Los Angeles International Airport, said that control of TV monitors varies by airport — sometimes the TSA controls them, and sometimes the airport does. Control of the monitors can even vary by terminal.

In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of Homeland Security, repeated Noem’s video message, adding that it was “unfortunate our workforce has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship.”

“Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” she added.

During the shutdown, the vast majority of the 61,000 TSA workers must work without pay, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The first payday on which TSA officers will not receive a paycheck will be Oct. 24, if the government is still shut down.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Christine Chung/Department of Homeland Security via The New York Times
c. 2025 The New York Times Company