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.
Big news from @DHSgov! ✈️👟 https://t.co/GJjd2UQMki
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) July 8, 2025
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.
We didn’t need TSA telling us to take off our shoes
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 8, 2025
We don’t need TSA
Share if you’d like Congress to abolish it altogether
It’s time to put airlines—which have the most natural incentive to secure the safety of their own planes—back in charge of their own security https://t.co/pbop0asz7V
And he wasn't the only one.
No more taking off shoes at the airport. Now let’s privatize/ abolish the TSA. Well done @Sec_Noem and President Trump! pic.twitter.com/0BLNSOslhm
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 8, 2025
Rejoice, you no longer have to take your shoes off to go through TSA airport security. Always a moronic rule that didn’t seem likely to make any of us safer. But this removal is likely to make airport security lines run way smoother.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 8, 2025
My point to this is that TSA should be utterly destroyed... A combo of security performance theater with overpowered below mid DMV workers who should be selling slurpees instead of controlling your travel.
— Benjamin Domenech (@bdomenech) July 8, 2025
Update - July 8, 5:40 PM:
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has now made it official:
🚨 @Sec_Noem: "TSA will no longer require travelers to remove their shoes when they go through our security checkpoints." pic.twitter.com/mfs9wxizHO
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 8, 2025
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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