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“Breakfast Club” host Charlamagne tha God said Tuesday he saw ICE agents picking up the slack of TSA agents so efficiently and friendly that he suspected there was a government “psy-op” at play.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order over the weekend to pay Transportation Security Administration officers who had been impacted by the recent government shutdown. Though complications from hundreds of TSA agents quitting or calling out of work are likely to continue, the effects of the resumed paychecks could be seen almost immediately.
While some TSA agents have begun to receive pay, ICE agents are still filling the gap, as Charlamagne and his co-hosts discussed.
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Radio host Charlamagne tha God said he was baffled by how professional and cordial ICE agents were during his recent air travel experience. (Derek White/Getty Images for iHeartMedia and The Black Effect Podcast Network)
“When I flew out of LaGuardia Friday, I ain’t see no TSA agents. ICE was doing everything,” Charlamagne recalled.
“And how was it? How was your experience?” co-host DJ Envy asked.
“I mean, they were great to be honest with you,” Charlamagne said. “Like to be honest, I’m just like, they were, and for that particular terminal I was flying out of LaGuardia, I forgot what terminal it was, but yeah, they were being extra nice like Chick-fil-A workers.”
Chick-fil-A, founded and operated by Christians, is broadly known for having friendly and professional staff to the point it has become something of a meme for being the gold standard of good customer service.
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Charlamagne tha God has blasted President Donald Trump’s administration in recent months, saying that after he is gone, there will be a de-MAGA-ification like the postwar purges of Nazi collaborators and sympathizers in Germany. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images for The New York Times; Doug Mills – Pool/Getty Images)
Charlamagne, has not been shy about condemning ICE agents and the DHS in recent months, to the point where he said there will be de-MAGA-ification like the government crackdown against Nazi collaborators and ideology after World War II. He struggled to believe that this same agency he had condemned in the past turned out to be professional in-person.
“I was saying to myself, I’m like, ‘There is no way in hell this is the same ICE agents that was on the streets of places like Minnesota with the masks on.’ Like they not wearing masks, like they being super nice,” he said.
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ICE agents help pick up trash at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. (Peter Pinedo/ Digital)
“I think it’s a psy-op for the midterms, right?” Charlamagne said, referring to the concept of a government-staged operation to sway public opinion through deceptive means.
“Because if you put them in the airports, and they’re super nice, and they’re helpful, and they got things running efficiently, when he says we’re going to have them at the polls in November, nobody going to think twice about it,” he said.
Digital reached out to ICE and did not receive an immediate reply.
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‘ Peter Pinedo and Brooke Taylor contributed to this report.
