Unqualified Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been making the rounds on cable tv guilty former President Joe Biden and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for air site visitors management issues at Newark Airport that Donald Trump and his co-President Elon Musk helped create.
Duffy’s newest effort to shirk duty for air site visitors woes comes as vacationers fear in regards to the delays and harmful radar outages which have been plaguing Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport, one of many nation’s busiest airports and a hub for main service United Airways.
“We’re all been reporting and seeing what’s happening at Newark airport. And I think it’s clear that the blame belongs with the last administration,” Duffy mentioned at a information convention on Monday.
Duffy made much more idiotic feedback throughout that very same information convention, saying that the issues ought to have been fastened by Biden in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, when folks weren’t flying.
“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 sport 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—underneath the course of Trump and Musk—who fired 400 Federal Aviation Administration workers in February, together with those that labored on “radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance,” The Related Press reported in February.
Associated | Trump crew makes determined bid to unravel air site 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 folks onboard within the deadliest airline catastrophe in the US in many years
And the Trump administration additionally supplied buyouts to FAA staffers in January—together with air site visitors controllers—as a part of Musk and his so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity’s effort to slash the federal workforce.
Now, Duffy is virtually begging air site visitors controllers to remain on at the same time as Trump and Musk proceed to make federal authorities workplaces a hostile and demoralizing place to work.
To set the report straight, Biden and Buttigieg did attempt to repair the air site 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 site visitors controllers. However Republicans ignored Biden’s funds requests and as a substitute handed a collection of stopgap funding measures to maintain the federal authorities open.
That hasn’t stopped Duffy from attempting 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.
“To cast blame on this administration for the policy failures of the last four years and say it’s our fault is outrageous, but it’s rich,” Duffy mentioned on Newsmax on the time.
The truth that Duffy simply can’t hold Buttigieg’s identify out of his mouth suggests Republicans might be apprehensive in regards to the former transportation secretary’s attainable 2028 presidential bid.
Buttigieg, for his half, is blasting Duffy for taking part in a blame sport as a substitute of taking duty.
He “must spend extra time doing what the American persons are paying him to do—repair issues—and fewer time blaming others,” Buttigieg mentioned in an announcement to The Guardian.
