On Sunday, the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation refused to apologize for the nationwide ground stop that stranded hundreds of thousands of airline travelers with delayed or canceled flights. Instead, Secretary Sean Duffy is blaming previous presidential administrations and Congress.
“It happened on my watch, but we have to be clear: I am moving at an incredible speed that no one has done at the [Federal Aviation Administration] or DOT in decades. And I’m proud of the work we’re doing, the attention we’re bringing to this issue,” Duffy said during an interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press . “But I can’t apologize for what was passed off to us, and I can’t blame Republicans or Democrats, because it’s all of them.”
The secretary said there has been “30 years of a lack of investment” from previous administrations. That’s certainly true: As The New York Times notes , “For decades, air traffic communications have relied on a system that runs on analog copper wire, floppy disks and alphabetical keyboards so old that the F.A.A. has difficulty sourcing spare parts.”
But Duffy and the Trump administration have been overseeing the FAA and the rest of country’s agin...