#clay travis

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

President Donald Trump threw his administration into chaos on Saturday by demanding the stationing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at U.S. airports in response to long lines triggered by the expiration of funding for the Transportation Security Administration. Top administration officials offered disparate explanations for what those ICE agents would be doing — explanations which also seemingly diverted from Trump’s own vision — as they scrambled to turn the president’s social media posts into some sort of coherent policy.  Meanwhile, ICE and Department of Homeland Security sources are grumbling to the press that the deployment will reduce their ability to focus on the president's deportation agenda. The president-mandated mayhem appears to stem from Trump’s habit of governing based on policy ideas he gets from his television, particularly the MAGA talking heads at Fox News. This Fox-Trump feedback loop has at various times driven everything from administration staffing to legislative and communications strategy to presidential pardons and federal contracts. Both the problem — long airport lines caused by Trump’s opposition to funding TSA — and his response — stationing ICE agents at the airports — seem to have their origins in Fox segments he had been watching. 

A government shutdown is hitting TSA and it’s Trump’s fault (with a Fox assist)

A partial government shutdown which impacts DHS is causing major disruptions at some U.S. airports, including long security lines. And while that shutdown originated with Democratic opposition to the Trump administration’s lawless immigration enforcement, it continues because of the president’s Fox-fueled demand that future appropriations come stapled to his unrelated legislative priorities.  Senate Democrats have refused to support appropriations for ICE or Customs and Border Protection absent reforms to their operations in light of the rampages by those agencies, while Senate Republicans have to date blocked Democratic attempts to separately fund TSA and other DHS agencies. And Trump is reportedly standing in the way of a deal pitched to him by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) in which “Senate Republicans would support funding all of DHS except ICE,” funding for which would be handled separately on a partisan basis via reconciliation.  What explains Trump’s intransigence, which has become the primary cause of the airport lines? He is using the TSA funding as leverage as he tries to ram through the SAVE America Act, legislation otherwise stymied in the Senate that would rewrite the nation’s election laws. And he is doing so in response to something he saw on Fox. On March 8, the president declared on Truth Social that he had been so moved by MAGA activist Scott Presler’s comments about the SAVE Act on Fox & Friends that morning that he would sign no other legislation until it was passed.  “It must be done immediately,” he posted. “It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION - GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY - ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN!”

[...]

Right-wing radio caller -> Fox segment -> presidential post -> policy

ICE agents are currently patrolling some U.S. airports after a right-wing radio caller proposed the idea, the show’s host took it to Fox, and the president adopted the policy in a social media post, as Semafor’s Ben Smith first detailed in a Sunday report.  “Linda from Arizona” called into The Clay and Buck Show on Friday afternoon proposing to “bring in ICE agents” as “a solution to the TSA problem.” Clay Travis, the show’s co-host, liked the idea so much that he brought it up that night during a hit on Fox’s Jesse Watters Primetime. “I had a caller on the show, The Clay and Buck Show, today, Charlie, had an interesting idea,” Travis told guest host Charlie Hurt. “What if President Trump announced that ICE agents were now going to be supplementing TSA agents inside of all of the airports? The ICE agents are still being paid. How quickly would Democrats panic if he said hey, we're going to put some ICE agents in line with the TSA, help to expedite everybody?” [...] Notably, both Homan and Duffy are in their administration roles at least in part due to their Fox ties. Homan, who has gone through the revolving door from the first Trump administration to a stint as a Fox contributor and then back to the second Trump administration, has taken on a larger role overseeing ICE operations after a Fox & Friends co-host suggested increasing his responsibilities. Duffy, meanwhile, is a former Fox contributor and host (he is also married to a current Fox & Friends Weekend co-host, who worked in that role alongside the nation’s current defense secretary).  Homan and Duffy both seem to be trying to salvage some sort of workable plan from the president’s Fox-stoked half-idea. Notably, neither pitched what Travis initially floated and Trump actually asked for in his initial post — ICE agents specifically tasked with arresting undocumented immigrants en masse. And that’s what the president still says is going to happen.

Pocharapon Neammanee at HuffPost:

Black comedian Drew Desbordes, better known online as “Druski,” ignited a slew of conservative backlash this week after putting on white makeup to mock “conservative women” in a sketch that seemed to be aimed at Turning Point USA’s Erika Kirk. “Erika Kirk’s husband was assassinated in September,” Clay Travis, founder of conservative media outlet OutKick, wrote on X. “It’s March & a black comedian is putting on white face & mocking her in a video.”

Druski, 31, stirred up controversy last year with a video in which he made himself look like a white NASCAR fan who was “just proud to be an American.” In his latest video, titled “How Conservative Women in America Act,” the influencer appears as a white woman with a blonde wig and heavy makeup. Although Druski did not say he was dressing up as Kirk specifically, many on the internet noticed similarities his character and to the Turning Point USA CEO.

The video begins with his character walking onto a stage, dancing to loud music as pyrotechnics go off. His outfit is similar to the one Kirk wore to her late husband Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, which also featured fireworks, in Arizona last year. The video then shows Druski, as the “conservative” woman, doing press conferences, including one about the war in Iran; driving a car with Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” blasting; holding a Bible during an interview, and doing Pilates.

“In South Dakota, we’re celebrating #InternationalWomensDay by defending women’s sports!” Noem wrote in a March 8 post responding to the successful passage of the Women’s Fairness in Sports bill. “I’m excited to sign this bill very soon.”

The next week, Noem issued a “style and form” veto of the legislation which would have barred males from competing among female athletes. Noem sent the bill back to the legislature with edits that would gut the law’s mechanisms for enforcement. The changes were rejected by the South Dakota House of Representatives.

Noem changed her position on the bill after intense lobbying by the state Chamber of Commerce and other powerful business groups, raising hysteria the legislation would provoke a corporate boycott. The governor’s own advisers include business leaders who opposed the bill.

After she effectively vetoed the legislation she had promised to sign days earlier, the governor who ascended to GOP stardom for her adamant rejection of coronavirus lockdowns tried to save her political ambitions with claims the law as written would have invited an avalanche of unwinnable litigation.