Trump's crash course in air travel

Since Trump's victory lap on rooting out DEI and "restoring aviation safety," planes can't manage to stay in the air.

Trump, Elon and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are learning in real time that purging the government of qualified and competent people has consequences— both physical and political. Yesterday, a Delta flight from Minnesota to Toronto ended up upside-down on the runway, training a spotlight on the raft of crashes and collisions that have eroded Americans’ trust in air travel and, to a broader degree, their faith in an administration more focused on cutting costs than ensuring the basic functioning of society.

For posterity, here’s a brief timeline of what happened leading up to this spate of crashes. On January 20, Trump and Elon Musk pushed out the FAA administrator without immediately naming a replacement. Also on January 20, Trump implemented a federal hiring freeze, which included air traffic controllers. On January 21, Trump disbanded the Aviation Security Advisory Committee and fired the TSA Director. On January 22, the White House posted that “PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP ENDS DEI MADNESS AND RESTORES EXCELLENCE AND SAFETY WITHIN THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION.” On January 28, Sean Duffy was confirmed as Transportation Secretary. And things went decidedly south from there.

On January 29, the first commercial plane crash in 16 years took place in DC.

On January 31, a Learjet crashed in Philadelphia.

On February 5, a Japan Airlines plane struck a Delta flight on a runway in Seattle.

On February 6, a Bering Air flight wrecked in Nome, Alaska

On February 10, a plane crashed in Scottsdale, Arizona.

On February 12, a military fighter jet crashed into the San Diego Bay.

On February 16, a plane crashed in Covington, Georgia.

And on February 17, a Delta flight from Minnesota crash landed in Toronto.

Notwithstanding the fact that Americans should perhaps consider chartering a boat if they’re considering loan-haul travel, what’s particularly disturbing is that even amid this spate of collisions, the Trump administration seems more intent on exacerbating the problem than fixing it. Hundreds of FAA employees were let go this weekend - even as planes were crashing on a near-daily basis - stretching the remaining employees even more thin (I should remind you that the DC crash over the Potomac involved one air traffic controller in a job that would normally require two people). Cutting these jobs is a matter of life and death for people who are traveling the skies—only, the Trump administration and the clown car cabinet he assembled don’t seem to care. Elon would rather haphazardly cut costs, even if doing so means further eroding trust in air travel. Frankly, at this point, why even have air traffic controllers at all? If our sole priority is cutting costs, think about the money we could save! And granted, we may very well see that money ultimately get funneled to SpaceX and Tesla, but hey, at least DOGE can tweet about “waste, fraud, and abuse” and get some likes on Twitter, and what’s more important than that?

But surely - surely - our Transportation Secretary is taking all of this seriously, right? Well, here’s a video he posted yesterday:

So that we’re clear, while planes are colliding or crashing on a near-daily basis, the Transportation secretary is joyriding on Air Force 1 to go watch the Daytona 500. Did he learn nothing about government service while he was dancing in his underwear on the Real World?

As the number of plane crashes increased, so has the scrutiny on Duffy. And he’s felt that scrutiny, evidenced by the fact that he spent yesterday tweeting out blame on - you guessed it - Pete Buttigieg. Which is especially bizarre, considering planes managed to stay airborne during Pete’s tenure as Transportation Secretary, and it wasn’t until Trump “ended DEI madness and restored excellent and safety within the federal aviation administration” that suddenly clapping for a successful landing on a flight doesn’t seem all that cringe anymore.

The reality is that Trump rammed through a bunch of unqualified nominees to lead departments that they were incapable of leading, and the consequences of this strategy are quickly presenting themselves. Trump (with his inability to nominate anyone qualified or competent) owns this. Elon (with his insistence on gutting the government of talent) owns this. And all of those spineless Republicans Senators (who greenlit Sean Duffy for fear of asserting their autonomy as a co-equal branch of government against Trump) own this.

But while this administration is learning about the existence of physical gravity in air travel, they’re also feeling the effects of political gravity. Sean Duffy is under increasing pressure, as he very well should. His tepid insistences that the previous Transportation Secretary is somehow responsible for the job that this Transportation Secretary is doing is a testament to his desperation. For all of the advantages that Trump enjoys - majorities in every branch of government, a coordinated and enormous rightwing media ecosystem, unlimited funding via Elon - none of that is as powerful as popular pressure. So keep that pressure up. Our voices matter; use them.