Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said this week that he’s worried the partial government shutdown could affect next month’s Super Bowl, which will be held in Atlanta.
Isakson on Tuesday suggested that Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport could go “out of business” because of a shortage of Transportation Security Agency (TSA) employees, who are working without pay amid the shutdown, which entered its 26th day on Wednesday.
{mosads}“We’ve got a Super Bowl coming to Atlanta, Ga., in about three weeks. The biggest tourism event in the world this year,” Isakson said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“What if the largest airport in the world, that’s going to bring people to the largest football game in the world, goes out of business because the TSA strikes?” he continued. “Then you’ve just cost millions of dollars to the United States of America, my home city of Atlanta and others.”
The Super Bowl, the championship game for the NFL, will be held Feb. 3 inside Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The federal government has been in a partial shutdown since Dec. 22, beginning amid an impasse between President Trump and lawmakers over Trump’s demand for billions of dollars in funding for a U.S.–Mexico border wall.
Trump and Republicans have since been at odds with Democrats, who have pledged not to approve any funding for a border wall.
Hartsfield-Jackson has already felt the effects of the shutdown. Earlier this week, travelers at the airport were met with security lines that took more than an hour to navigate through.