A contractor replacing a copper wire apparently set off the airport disruption
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy demanded that Congress give the Federal Aviation Administration $50 billion for upgrades after an airport disruption the Journal described as sudden and sloppy, apparently set off by a contractor replacing a copper wire. That single act on a Friday afternoon grounded thousands of flights and potentially cost the airline industry millions of dollars, according to the Journal.
Duffy had no easy answers for the airport disruption. He and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin gave a press conference Friday afternoon about the airport problem, but the briefing did little to assuage the thousands of stranded passengers who were stuck, the Journal reported. On Saturday, Duffy was back for the second time in two days, demanding billions of dollars from Congress to upgrade air-traffic systems and infrastructure.
Whether the mistake was caused by human error — a contractor messing up — or by old systems could take some time to sort out, the Journal reported. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, and then December looms.
The funding request arrives in a lame-duck Congress. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid once famously said it would take the Senate three weeks just to screw in a lightbulb, and the Journal suggested this Congress might take even longer than that, with plenty of people already checked out — literally and figuratively.
Duffy’s demand also lands amid wider scrutiny of the Trump administration. Duffy is the third top Trump administration official since the midterm elections less than two weeks ago to face intense scrutiny, the Journal reported. The Journal reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth barely avoided impeachment and, the next day, was barked at by a member of the military when someone in his group wasn’t showing the proper respect at Arlington National Cemetery. The Journal reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, meanwhile, is under enormous pressure related to the ouster of Nvidia’s Chief Executive Jensen Huang.
The Journal reported that attention now turns to Duffy, the former reality-show star and former lawmaker who spent a big part of this summer traveling around the U.S. with his family for a new reality show.
The reporting came from Damian Paletta, The Wall Street Journal’s Washington coverage chief, who has covered Washington for 22 years as a reporter and editor, in the paper’s Politics newsletter.