Trump Hilariously Slaps Pete Buttigieg Around, Promises Big Changes With National Airspace

Speaking from the Middle East, President Donald Trump slapped former Pete Buttigieg around on Thursday morning. As RedState previously reported, the former transportation secretary and unscheduled paternity leave aficionado was implicated on Wednesday in a scandal involving an inoperative hotline between Washington National Airport (DCA) and the Pentagon. That became especially relevant given the mid-air collision between a regional airliner and a military helicopter that occurred there in January, largely due to a lack of coordination within the airspace.

While speaking about the changes he will make, Trump mocked Buttigieg for "riding a bicycle" to work and his attempts to pump up a 2028 presidential candidacy, the latter of which has been marked by the growing of a beard that would make a teenager envious.

TRUMP: Biden didn't do a thing for four years, and Pete Buttigieg was the head, and he goes bicycling to work, he takes a bicycle to work, can you believe it? He's running the biggest air system in the world, and he takes a bicycle to work. What a, and they say he's gonna run for president. I don't see it. Who knows, but I don't see it.
But when I look at what they've done, it's so horrible what they've done, and the work they did do, they've wasted billions of dollars. They're trying to hook up air systems to copper, and they tried to hook up copper to glass, and the glass doesn't work with the copper, and they had 30,000 contractors doing 30,000 different jobs, and when they put it all together, it didn't even come close to working, and we're going to be getting out a brand new system. It's very important, we'll have a system, and we think we know what that system is.

What Trump is referring to was Buttigieg's penchant for cosplaying as a climate warrior while transportation secretary. In one ridiculous instance, he had a government SUV drop him off a few blocks from the Department of Transportation. He then pulled a bike out of the back and rode it the rest of the way so the press could snap pictures of him.

In other words, Buttigieg was a complete and total do-nothing as transportation secretary. In fact, the only time you'd really hear from him is when he'd show up on CNN or the broadcast network Sunday shows to defend the Biden administration on issues not even related to his job. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think he even chimed in to criticize Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on his Parental Rights in Education bill (now a law) that took gay porn out of school libraries and stopped the teaching of sexuality to small children. I know his husband, who puts off all kinds of weird vibes if you've ever seen his social media posts, did.

Returning to Trump, he went on to say he wants a unified contract to develop the new ATC system.

Trump on Air Traffic System: We’re going to be giving out a brand new system… We’ll have the best system and we think we know who that system is. But we have a lot bidding.. We want a unified system we don't have 5000 contractors in all different places, some digging ditches and… pic.twitter.com/zhu4royMg4
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 15, 2025

I don't expect the president to have any expertise in this area, and he's probably just speaking in generalities. While satellite could be part of a new system, you'll still need ground-based radar for real-time detection of aircraft because even if you mandate everyone have ADSB (which uses ground-based towers) or some other method of non-direct detection, there will always be smaller aircraft out there with nothing but a few instruments and no radio that need to be coordinated around.

Nitpicking aside, it's good to see a push toward fixing the antiquated system, and I'm sure Sean Duffy, who now heads the Department of Transportation, has the right people designing what needs to be designed. Certainly, he'll do a better job than Buttigieg, who did no job at all.

Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's leadership, the Air Traffic system is getting a much-needed, long-overdue overhaul.

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