Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wasn’t having it when reporters confronted him Friday with shameless suggestions that the Biden administration caused the nationwide FAA ground stop.
During an interview with the press, Buttigieg defended his administration’s record, saying they had done considerable work to upgrade the country’s air traffic control system. He also took a not-so-subtle swipe at the current administration’s approach to handling the crisis, TheWrap reports.
“When we had an outage, I didn’t stand there complaining about the Trump administration,” Buttigieg said. “We got to work… I’m certain that that’s what career officials and the career day-to-day employees at FAA and USDOT are doing. This should not be about politics.”
He added that he was confident the career employees at the FAA and Department of Transportation were doing the same now, stressing that the situation shouldn’t become a political football.
Buttigieg also called for clear answers about what actually caused Friday’s telecommunications and computer system failure, which brought air traffic to a halt nationwide.
Meanwhile, current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was busy explaining that the problem stemmed from outdated equipment, including old switches, routers, and copper telephone lines dating back decades.
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