Trump breaks silence on US ground stop, urges Congress to fund air traffic control overhaul

Detailed summary

Trump has been quiet on the ground stop since it began Friday afternoon, instead issuing statements on social media about completely different topics. | World News

President Donald Trump on Sunday broke his silence on the nationwide ground stop that snarled airline travel this weekend, using the incident to push Congress on money to fully upgrade America's air traffic control system.

The Republican president has been conspicuously quiet on the ground stop since it began Friday afternoon, instead issuing statements on social media about completely different topics as frustrated passengers were left stranded at airports and his government scrambled with airlines to restore normal travel.

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Trump said in a new post on his social media platform that his administration has begun upgrading that system, but that the task should not be done in “drips and drabs.” The Republican-controlled Congress approved $12.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration as part of the party's sweeping tax cut package last year, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly characterized that funding as an down payment on a broader overhaul of the aging system.

“If Congress approves the desperately needed money for Air Traffic Control, we can get it built quickly and efficiently,” Trump wrote on social media Sunday. “It will be the BEST SYSTEM anywhere in the World. Much of our current air control system is 50 years old - RIDICULOUS!”

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In another post, he complained about how his Democratic predecessor had maintained the FAA and the air traffic control system, accusing Joe Biden's administration of making an “old and broken system worse than when they began.”

Biden signed a massive infrastructure bill into law in the first year of his presidency, which set aside $25 billion for the FAA to improve airports and its traffic control towers, to redevelop airport terminals, to “upgrade the foundation” of the air traffic control system, according…

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