Trump administration blames prior presidents and Congress for flight stoppage

Detailed summary

US transportation secretary defends president, who waited until Sunday to remark on longest countrywide ground stop in 25 years ...

Donald Trump’s administration has blamed the travel chaos stemming from Friday’s four-hour nationwide flight stoppage on prior presidents as well as a lack of congressional funding – though a Democratic senator argued that the Trump administration has not properly invested all of the funds it has already been given to implement needed air travel infrastructure upgrades.

“I take responsibility for what was given to me by prior administrations,” US transportation secretary Sean Duffy told CNN’s Dana Bash, a day after he said routine but necessary maintenance botched by a contractor had caused Friday’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop, leading to the delay or cancellation of thousands of flights.

Meanwhile, Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland criticised how the Trump administration has managed existing funding allocated for the improvements coveted by Duffy.

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“It’s really rich to hear the secretary pointing the fingers at Congress when Congress has given the administration what they asked for,” Van Hollen separately told CNN’s Bash on Sunday morning. “If they need more, they should come up and justify it. I will support what is necessary to have a safe system and a reliable system.”

Duffy claimed the congressional funding which Van Hollen mentioned – $12.5 billion (€11.14 billion) – was limited in scope and not nearly enough.

“I have no money in that $12.5 billion that I can use for a new architecture for telecom,” said Duffy. “I can’t build new software to manage our aeroplanes in the airspace because it dates back to the 1990s, but there’s no money for that. There’s no money for towers. Our towers are old.”

Duffy also spent part of the interview with CNN defending Trump, who waited until Sunday to remark on the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years.

The president’s comments came in the form of social media posts blaming the Biden administration and…

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Irish Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.