President Donald Trump didn’t make a campaign promise to make air travel great again, but that’s exactly what he’s done with the upcoming announcement that TSA will no longer require passengers to take off their shoes.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration will hold a press conference on Tuesday, making it official that they are putting an end to the shoe removal policy for passengers trying to get through those long lines at security at airports.
In a post on X from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, she wrote, “Big news from @DHSgov!” It included a post from a CBS News reporter which read, “Travelers no longer have to remove their shoes to get through the regular line at TSA security checkpoints at airports, @CBSNews reports.”
In a statement to Fox News, TSA said that:
TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture,” a TSA spokesperson said in a statement.
The policy has been in place for nearly 20 years and was instituted in 2006 in response to “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, a British citizen with ties to al-Qaeda, who tried to hide and then detonate explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. It came after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the analysis of places of weakness in our airports.
As RedState’s Ward Clark reported in March, Republican Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) proposed a bill that would abolish the TSA in favor of the private sector taking over the job at national airports.
READ MORE: Should We Abolish the Transportation Security Agency?
MORE: Can Anyone Explain to Me Why We Still Need the TSA?
“The TSA has not only intruded into the privacy and personal space of most Americans, it has also repeatedly failed tests to find weapons and explosives. Our bill privatizes security functions at American airports under the eye of an Office of Aviation Security Oversight, bringing this bureaucratic behemoth to a welcome end. American families can travel safely without feeling the hands of an army of federal employees,” Lee told Fox News Digital in a statement.
The measure would officially abolish the TSA three years after being enacted into law, which the senators believe would provide time for security needs to be privatized.
The bill would also direct the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Transportation to make a reorganization plan and submit it to Congress.
In his own statement, Tuberville said, “The TSA is an inefficient, bureaucratic mess that infringes on Americans’ freedoms.”
Sen. Lee reacted to the news about allowing passengers to keep their shoes on, celebrating the reports.
And he wasn’t the only one.
Update – July 8, 5:40 PM:
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has now made it official:
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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