After the tragic mid-air military helicopter/commercial plane collision that took place near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in late January, the mainstream media and Democrats immediately jumped to blame President Donald Trump for the crash and the 67 people who perished, though he had barely been in office for a week.
Every airliner incident since then, they've continued to bang the "blame Trump" drum, with Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), for instance, pointing to Trump after the terrifying crash of the Delta jet that happened in mid-February at Toronto's Pearson Airport.
Schumer blamed the Trump administration's "layoffs" of what he described as "FAA safety specialists." In response, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt correctly pointed out that 1) the plane was in Canadian airspace, 2) Canadian ATC oversaw the landing, and 3) ATC and safety personnel here in the U.S. had not been fired.
Nevertheless, the "fired ATC/safety personnel" myth has persisted in the mainstream media and on the left, with the Newark Liberty International Airport issues now making front-page headlines and giving them another chance to keep the myth going.
In response, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sought to put the fearmongering to rest during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development hearing Thursday morning.
At one point, Kennedy asked Duffy if he had fired any air traffic controllers or if DOGE advisor Elon Musk had. Duffy said neither one of them did. When Kennedy inquired as to where all the noise about "fired ATC" was coming from, Duffy made the following observations:
So there were about 350 probationary employees at the FAA that were let go, and there are 46,000 people that work at the FAA, so this was a minuscule percentage. But even air traffic controllers who were probationary employees were excluded. All safety positions were preserved at the FAA, including air traffic controllers. And so I think it's a narrative that some in media and in politics have tried to drive as if we're not focused on safety.
[...]
We did not actually fire any air traffic controllers, Senator. We've been hiring air traffic controllers as quickly as we can, so I don't know how many times I have to say it.
Watch:
Senator John Kennedy pressed Transportation Secretary Duffy over claims that air traffic controllers have been fired.
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) May 15, 2025
This has been a narrative pushed by liberals and legacy media.
Sean Duffy answered “I did not” fire any.
Another narrative debunked! pic.twitter.com/NDBET0Tiga
Duffy reiterated his points in a heated exchange with a Democrat Senator at another point in the hearing, while also emphasizing the failures of the Biden-Harris administration, when Pete Buttigieg was the DOT secretary:
We're in this situation because the last administration didn't see to take initiative on the 3,000 controllers short that we were. Under COVID, they didn't [send] up to school fast enough to get more kids through Oklahoma, so we would have more controllers in the airspace today.
The infrastructure didn't rot in the last 100 days, we didn't have 3,000 controller shortages in the last 100 days. There were four years that came before, where nothing was done. And watchdog groups had warned the DOT that the infrastructure was failing, and nothing was done. So we're going to do something about it. We're going to try to fix it.
Watch:
Let me be clear: despite what the fake news is pushing, no air traffic controllers have been fired.
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 14, 2025
Safety critical positions haven’t just been preserved — we’re actually hiring more controllers! pic.twitter.com/lrgujHK0Hp
As we reported, Duffy held an impromptu press conference on Monday, where he also addressed the failures of the DOT under the leadership of Buttigieg, which Duffy says directly led to the Newark problems, which have included radar outages:
In July of 2024, the Biden/Buttigieg FAA moved control of the New York/Newark airspace from New York, also known as N90, to Philadelphia Tower, or the Philadelphia TRACON [Terminal Radar Approach Control Facility].
As part of the move, the STARS [Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System] system that processes radar data for Newark remained based in New York City. They didn't move it from New York down to Philly, where the controllers would be. Redundant and diverse telecommunications lines feed this data from New York to Philadelphia TRACON, where controllers handle New York arrivals and departures.
The Biden/Buttigieg bungled this move without properly hardening the telecom lines feeding the data, which was already well known to be error-prone. Without addressing the underlying infrastructure, they added more risk to the system. In fact, there were issues in October and November under Biden and Buttigieg that would have highlighted to the prior Administration that the underlying hardware would continue to cause problems.
As we also reported, Buttigieg - who appears to be mulling a 2028 run for president - is now at the center of another air traffic control scandal:
On Wednesday, it was revealed that a key hotline between the Pentagon and the air traffic control at Washington National Airport has been inoperative since 2022. But what would have been a mundane failure turned deadly in January when a military helicopter collided with a regional airliner, killing 67 people.
[...]
Hotlines between adjoining air traffic control sectors and airport towers are common across the national airspace to help with coordination, and the line to the Pentagon would have served the same purpose. Who was in charge in 2022 when it went offline and then spent the next three years not being repaired? That would be Pete Buttigieg...
Still not seeing any apologies from the knee-jerkers on the left and in the press (including Buttigieg) who rushed to pin the January crash on Trump, but I'm sure they'll be forthcoming. Yep. Just you wait and see.
Please help us continue to report on and expose the bias, lies, and left-wing narratives of the 'Fake News' Media. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member