Jon Karl Asked Van Hollen One Question About ICE That Ended the Interview

Forty-four days into the shutdown he caused, Chris Van Hollen went on ABC Sunday morning to explain himself.

Now Congress is on a two-week paid vacation – and 44 days into the shutdown Van Hollen caused, the workers he abandoned still can't pay their rent.

What Karl said to Van Hollen's face is something every American stuck in a four-hour airport security line this spring break deserves to see.

The Moment Karl Stopped Playing Along

The Department of Homeland Security has been partially shut down for 44 days.

The Coast Guard isn't being paid. Five hundred airport screeners have quit. At some airports, wait times hit four and a half hours. The TSA Administrator testified before Congress that 40 to 50 percent of staff at the hardest-hit airports are calling out on any given day.

Van Hollen went on This Week Sunday to spin all of that as a Republican problem.

Jon Karl wasn't buying it.

"You have fought and blocked the funding for the Department of Homeland Security because you object to what ICE has been doing," Karl told Van Hollen directly. "And yet, the only thing that has been assured throughout all of this is that ICE already has the money."

That's the part Democrats don't want you to know.

ICE was pre-funded. Republicans saw this coming and protected deportation operations a year ago when they passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. So Van Hollen and Senate Democrats shut down the entire Department of Homeland Security – TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service – to defund an agency that is already funded.

Karl laid it out in plain English: "You're holding up the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security because you object to ICE and you want changes to ICE, but through it all, ICE continues to have the money."

Van Hollen called it a "false statement."

Karl responded with three words: "That's just a fact."

Democrats Got Nothing and Broke Everything

Karl asked Van Hollen a simple question: after 44 days of this, what did Democrats actually get?

Van Hollen couldn't answer.

Tom Homan said what the rest of America was thinking: "These TSA officers are struggling. They can't feed their families or pay their rent. Your heart goes out to them because they're sitting there right now working very hard and not being paid by members of Congress who are now on vacation, getting paid. It's ridiculous."

President Trump stepped in Friday and signed a memorandum directing DHS to pay TSA agents out of funds Democrats can't touch.

More than 480 TSA officers have resigned since February 14. Nearly 500 trained security screeners gone – and it takes four to six months to train a replacement. The damage Democrats caused at your airports will not be fixed overnight.

This Is Exactly What They Called Republicans For Doing

Here's what makes this unforgivable.

In 2013, Democrats spent 16 days screaming that House Republicans were "legislative arsonists" for shutting down the government over Obamacare. Nancy Pelosi called it hostage-taking. Barack Obama went on national television to say no Congress in history had ever been "irresponsible enough" to hold government funding hostage to force policy changes.

Democrats just did it for 44 days – nearly three times as long – and walked away with nothing.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the quiet part out loud: "Democrats didn't actually want a solution, they wanted an issue. Politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base over actually solving a problem."

They invented a hostage crisis they knew wouldn't work, put hundreds of thousands of federal workers through financial hell, set the record for the longest partial DHS shutdown in American history, and then flew home for Easter.

Jon Karl, believe it or not, asked Van Hollen what Democrats got out of this.

Even Democrats’ media pals know they’ve stepped in it.

He's still waiting for an answer.

Share this with every American who stood in a four-hour airport security line this spring break. They deserve to know exactly who put them there.

Sources:

• "ABC News Host Confronts Democrat Senator Over 'Holding Up' DHS Funding," Daily Caller, March 29, 2026.
• "Van Hollen Clashes with ABC Host Over What Democrats Actually Got From the DHS Shutdown Fight," Fox News, March 29, 2026.
• "Border Czar Tom Homan Rips Congress for Paid Vacation as TSA Agents Struggle Without Pay," Fox News, March 29, 2026.
• "House Passes Bill to Fully Fund DHS Through May 22," ABC News, March 28, 2026.
• "Rep. Evans Exposes Democrats' Defund-The-Police Agenda During Hearing on Longest Partial Government Shutdown," Representative Gabe Evans Press Release, March 2026.
• Transcript: Tom Homan on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, CBS News, March 29, 2026.