Copyright The Daily Beast
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy lashed out at his predecessor Pete Buttigieg after the high-profile Democrat flamed President Donald Trump for “s--tting on” air traffic controllers during the shutdown. Duffy has struggled for weeks to manage the travel chaos caused by longest-ever government shutdown. On Monday, an irate Trump, 79, wrote on Truth Social that, “All Air Traffic Controllers must get back to work, NOW!!! Anyone who doesn’t will be substantially ‘docked.’” “For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU,” added the president, whose administration has threatened to withhold back pay from furloughed federal employees. In response, Buttigieg, 43, who served as President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, wrote in a post on X that the president “wouldn’t last five minutes as an air traffic controller.” “After everything they’ve been through—and the way this administration has treated them from Day One—he has no business s--tting on them now,” Buttigieg wrote. Hundreds of FAA employees were fired earlier in the year as part of the cuts recommended by billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE task force, leaving air traffic control centers understaffed even before the government shutdown, NBC Washington reported. After Buttigieg called out Trump, Duffy—a former reality TV star and Fox News host—rushed to defend his boss’ honor. “Give me a break. You were basically AWOL at the DOT,” Duffy, 54, responded in his own post on X. “I spend my whole day dealing with your neglect and cleaning up your messes. Sit this one out.” Speaking to reporters in the White House on Monday, Trump also tried to deflect from the current flight delays and cancellations by accusing Buttigieg of spending billions of dollars trying to “patch together” an air traffic control system that “when they turned it on, it didn’t work.” Buttigieg responded by saying, “Trump just made a bunch of s--t up about air traffic control.” The air traffic control system was in “rough shape” when Biden took office, so the administration launched a long-term communications fix that the Trump administration is now claiming credit for, Buttigieg said. The president also seems to be picking a fight with air traffic controllers to distract from the fact that the Republican spending will allow insurance premiums to skyrocket next year for millions of Americans, he added. White House spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Beast in a statement: “It’s hard to take anything Pete Buttigieg says after he spent four years pushing DEI nonsense instead of actually doing his job at the Department of Transportation. The Trump administration is going to continue cleaning up his mess.”
