Trump’s ICE airport idea came after a radio host pitched it on Fox News
By Brian Stelter, CNN
(CNN) — “Linda from Arizona,” a caller on a conservative talk radio show, might deserve the credit or blame for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deploying to airports across the United States today.
The caller said on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” “I think I have a solution to the TSA problem.” She said, “We need to bring in ICE agents.”
“It’s kind of a brilliant idea,” co-host Clay Travis said.
That exchange aired on the radio on Friday afternoon. President Trump announced his vision for ICE agents at airports on Saturday afternoon.
What happened in between? Travis appeared on one of Trump’s favorite Fox News shows and personally pitched the idea.
The White House hasn’t commented on whether Trump did, in fact, hear the TV segment and act accordingly. But Trump has a decade-long track record of watching Fox and posting his reactions on social media.
During a Monday morning press gaggle, when asked whose idea it was to deploy ICE to airports, Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “Mine. That was mine.”
He then likened the idea to inventing the paperclip. “It was so simple, and everybody that looked at it thought, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’” he said. “ICE was my idea.”
However, “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” which airs on local stations across the country, certainly believes their caller deserves credit for the idea.
On Saturday, the show’s Facebook page touted its influence: “On Friday, a caller named Linda proposed a brilliant idea. Friday night, Clay talked about it on Fox. Today, President Trump took the advice! Way to go, Linda.”
The radio conversation was prompted by a congressional standoff over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The stalemate — due in part to Democratic demands to change Trump’s immigration enforcement practices — has led to a five-week partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Long lines at some TSA security checkpoints are one of the knock-on effects, which led to Friday’s conversation with Travis on the radio.
Radio show callers are often identified by their first name and state, so there is no apparent way to reach “Linda in Arizona” for comment.
But she called in with a hopeful tone, believing her idea could ease some of the long lines at major airports.
“What we need to do is we need to supplement where we’re missing out on TSA agents,” by bringing in ICE, she said.
Travis — who has interviewed Trump in the past and is well aware of the president’s Fox fixation — invoked both Linda and Trump during a Friday evening appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
“What if President Trump announced that ICE agents were now going to be supplementing TSA agents inside all of the airports?”
Watters’ guest host, Charlie Hurt, looked intrigued by the idea.
Prominent pro-Trump social media accounts amplified the segment and cheered the idea of deploying ICE on Saturday morning.
When Trump posted about the deployment idea on Saturday afternoon, a fan wrote to Travis, “I first heard the idea from a caller on ur show. Brilliant.” Travis replied, “Me too!”
CNN searched TV transcript databases and found no other mentions of the idea on major networks until Travis brought it up.
Trump’s Truth Social post seemed to catch his own administration off guard. Officials offered conflicting statements about what functions ICE agents would actually perform at airports.
On Sunday, Hurt was back on Fox, in his usual role as weekend-morning co-host, and he interviewed a TSA worker and local union leader. Hurt asked, “What is it that ICE agents can do on the ground that would be helpful to your members?”
Not much, the Dallas-based agent, Johnny Jones, said. He sounded apprehensive about the hastily assembled plan.
“It takes about five to six months to become a certified officer,” he said, so “I couldn’t imagine what functions they’re going to do other than just kind of stand outside the checkpoint or maybe sit on the exit lane.”
Jones warned that the ICE agents could wind up being a “distraction,” adding, “I don’t know what kind of interaction this is going to cause.”
Hurt wrapped the segment without any mention that Fox might have inspired Trump’s ICE deployment plan in the first place.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
This story has been updated with additional information.
