Unqualified Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been making the rounds on cable tv in charge former President Joe Biden and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for air visitors management issues at Newark Airport that Donald Trump and his co-President Elon Musk helped create.
Duffy’s newest effort to shirk accountability for air visitors woes comes as vacationers fear in regards to the delays and harmful radar outages which were plaguing Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport, one of many nation’s busiest airports and a hub for main service United Airways.
“We didn’t have to be here. This did not have to be our story. Over the last four years, the last administration, they knew this was a problem. During COVID, when people weren’t flying, that was a perfect time to fix these problems,” Duffy mentioned.
After all, Biden was not president in 2020 when the pandemic began and flights have been mainly halted. It was Duffy’s Pricey Chief Donald Trump who was president then.
Duffy continued his blame recreation tour on Tuesday, insisting once more to CNBC that the issues at Newark Airport are Biden and Buttigieg’s fault.
“Government watchdogs warned the last administration, and they did nothing. We are going to make sure things are done right,” Duffy mentioned.
After all, it was Duffy—below the path of Trump and Musk—who fired 400 Federal Aviation Administration staff in February, together with those that labored on “radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance,” The Related Press reported in February.
Associated | Trump workforce makes determined bid to resolve air visitors controller disaster
Trump additionally gutted an aviation security board mere days earlier than the Jan. 30 airplane crash at Reagan Nationwide Airport in Washington, D.C., that killed all 67 individuals onboard within the deadliest airline catastrophe in america in a long time
And the Trump administration additionally provided buyouts to FAA staffers in January—together with air visitors controllers—as a part of Musk and his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity’s effort to slash the federal workforce.
A show exhibits the standing of flights at Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport on Could 5.
Now, Duffy is virtually begging air visitors controllers to remain on at the same time as Trump and Musk proceed to make federal authorities places of work a hostile and demoralizing place to work.
To set the document straight, Biden and Buttigieg did attempt to repair the air visitors management issues whereas in workplace, however had their efforts blocked by Republican lawmakers. For instance, in April 2024 Buttigieg requested Congress to approve funding to rent 2,000 extra air visitors controllers. However Republicans ignored Biden’s price range requests and as an alternative handed a sequence of stopgap funding measures to maintain the federal authorities open.
That hasn’t stopped Duffy from making an attempt to deflect blame for the issues at Newark—which we would add weren’t taking place when Biden and Buttigieg have been on the helm.
In February, amid a spate of lethal airplane crashes throughout the nation, Duffy blamed Biden.
The truth that Duffy simply can’t maintain Buttigieg’s identify out of his mouth suggests Republicans could possibly be nervous in regards to the former transportation secretary’s doable 2028 presidential bid.
Buttigieg, for his half, is blasting Duffy for taking part in a blame recreation as an alternative of taking accountability.
He “must spend extra time doing what the American individuals are paying him to do—repair issues—and fewer time blaming others,” Buttigieg mentioned in a press release to The Guardian.
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