Trump is paying TSA agents — but where is the money coming from?

After weeks of long lines at airports and bickering in Congress, Transportation Security Administration agents began to receive pay earlier this week thanks to an executive order by President Donald Trump.

Trump’s move to bypass Congress — which under the U.S. Constitution is granted power over federal spending — and unilaterally pay the airport security agents is a momentary reprieve. Negotiations over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down since February, are largely stalled while Congress is on recess for two weeks.

The paychecks raise a series of questions: Where does the money Trump is using come from? How much is available? And for how long can Trump continue to pay TSA agents if Congress doesn’t soon come to a deal?

Trump’s executive order directs Homeland Security secretary and the White House Office of Management and Budget director “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown.”

The Trump administration has confirmed the money is coming from last year’s Republican tax and spending bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“Not unlike actions taken during the first Democrat-shutdown (i.e., paying the troops), President Trump has determined that congressional Democrats have created an emergency situation that cannot be allowed to continue,” a senior administration official said via email.

The White House has not laid out exactly where within the tax and spending bill the money is coming from, but Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, said there is only one plausible section that the administration could be citing.

Buried deep in the more than 300-page measure is a section that sets aside $10 billion “for reimbursement of costs incurred in undertaking activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s mission to safeguard the borders of the United States.”

“They do have a pot of money. It is a giant slush fund. But you couldn’t use it for [just] anything,” Kogan said.

Trump has gotten creative to pay certain federal employees in the past. During the full government shutdown last fall, he tapped into unspent research and development funds, as well as a $130 million gift from a donor to pay the U.S. military. While Trump didn’t identify the private donor, The New York Times reported that it was billionaire Trump backer Timothy Mellon.

While Democrats also say they want TSA agents to be paid, Trump’s latest unilateral move to pay federal workers without Congress first allocating the money raised alarms.

“I am glad that this administration has finally chosen to pay these workers,…