MALVEAUX: Well, joining me now from Greenville, South Carolina, to talk about the actions surrounding Southers' nomination is Republican Senator Jim DeMint.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

You heard Jeanne Meserve's report. Clearly, the majority leader, Harry Reid, is going to be fast-tracking this through as soon as senators return from their break.

What is going to be your response, if any?

DEMINT: Well, he could have done that months ago. Unfortunately, the president has been downplaying the threat of terrorism since he took office.

He waited eight months to even nominate someone for this position, and then he wanted him approved with no debate or no vote. The only thing I've asked for is limited debate and a recorded vote. Now, Senator Reid could have done that months ago, but the fact is they've been working on other things and have not seen airport security as a priority. Since the agency was formed...

MALVEAUX: Well, clearly, they were working on the Senate health care reform bill, which is obviously a big, big task ahead, as you can acknowledge. But coming back now, is there anything that you're going to do to counter this motion that he's going to filed to cut off debate?

DEMINT: Well, I think the American people should be aware that the priority of the administration is to submit our airport security to collective bargaining with the unions, even though that's been prohibited since the agency was formed. The reason it's prohibited is the same reason for the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, the Coast Guard, is there's a constant need to adjust and to be flexible, to use imagination to change things. We cannot ask a third-party union boss whether or not we can move a screener from one station to another. That's what collective bargaining does.

MALVEAUX: Senator, I want you to respond, however, to the American Federation of Government Employees. This represents 12,000 of the TSA's nearly 40,000 transportation officers.

They say this isn't a security issue. They say, "This is not an issue of security. There's no evidence that labor rights have any effect on transportation security officers. This is a dedicated workforce who see their jobs as important to the security of the nation."

And they point to union members who both acted after 9/11, in the Fort Hood massacre as well, that these were union members, firefighters, police officers, who essentially acted very quickly and that it doesn't really -- your argument doesn't hold water here.

DEMINT: Well, my beef is not with union members, but with union bosses and the collective bargaining process. The union boss that you were interviewing used the Customs and Border security as an example.

We do have 12 million undocumented aliens in our country, and that agency has also had to deal with all kinds of charges of changing prices for parking. They're dealing with the collective bargaining of unions all the time, and they're not as effective as they should be. But there's a reason that collective bargaining was prohibited from the airport security.

It is very different from a local police department. They're having to deal with international threats, as we saw on Christmas Day. They have to constantly be changing. And there is no reason, no good security reason, that we should submit this to collective bargaining.

All it is, is politics. The president promised the unions that he would bring these 50,000 people into a union, and it just doesn't make any sense for security.

MALVEAUX: Senator, I want to turn the corner, if I may.

There's a lot of politics that are being played out here over the president's response to this attempted terror attack. You've been very critical of the Obama administration in terms of his response, but he has come out over the last couple of days, twice now, and the president said very clearly that this was a systemic failure, that it was human failure, and it was a catastrophic breach of security.

Are you satisfied that the president, his administration is stepping up here and taking responsibility?

DEMINT: Well, that, frankly, is good news, is that the president -- while other Democrats are trying to find someone to blame for this, at least the president is saying it is the responsibility of his administration. My hope is that he'll change his focus from politics to real security.

There's no reason that we should be focusing the attention of our homeland security agency and airport security on collective bargaining with union bosses when we need to be upgrading so that we can deal with threats all over the world. Again, there is no security reason for collective bargaining right now.

MALVEAUX: Senator, we're going to have to let it go there. Thank you so much for joining us in THE SITUATION ROOM. Clearly, come back in January. We'll see how this debate plays out, whether or not there will be a debate over that very issue.

Thank you very much, Senator.

DEMINT: Thank you.