At President Trump's Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy touted his work in the first 100 days, prompting scorn from Trump about former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, so CAFE standards, we have a fuel economy standards on vehicles that are going to go to 50 miles per gallon.
00:09We are going to rewrite those standards, bring it down to something that's far more reasonable.
00:13Elon's fine with that, I hope.
00:16But it's going to drive down the price of a car in America, making cars more affordable for families.
00:25Also, Biden had the social cost of credit when we build infrastructure, roads and bridges, adding 3% to 5% on infrastructure costs.
00:35We've gotten rid of the social cost of carbon, driving down the cost to build roads and bridges across the country.
00:41We have what is called follow the law.
00:45So we have so many states and municipalities that don't follow the law.
00:49So whether it's DEI, discriminating against Americans, whether they give illegals driver's license or their sanctuary cities or states,
01:00if you don't follow the law, if you're giving license to illegals, if you're having DEI policies, we're not going to fund your projects.
01:08So you've got to certify in your state or in your city to get road and bridge money or rail money that you're actually following the law,
01:15which includes executive orders from you, Mr. President.
01:17We're cutting back funding.
01:19We send research money, Mr. President, to universities to do research on more equitable and sustainable transportation systems,
01:31projects that will use data and public opinion to inform policy and infrastructure and technology,
01:37benefiting diverse communities, including women and gender nonconforming people.
01:41Just stupid waste of money.
01:43We're pulling that money back from universities.
01:45We should do good research if we're doing research in universities.
01:49And then one last thing, air traffic control.
01:52We don't have enough air traffic controllers.
01:54We're about 3,000 short.
01:56We're working on an agreement with the union.
01:58So when controllers become retirement eligible, we're going to cut a deal to try to get them to stay longer, stay in the tower.
02:06And then we have a plan to put more butts in seats in Oklahoma City so we can get more students through the academy and in the towers as well.
02:14It's going to take us a while to do that, to train them up.
02:17But we're in the process before our four years are done, well before that.
02:21We're going to be at full capacity.
02:23Chair, do you want to tell them about, I think we have to bring it up, we have very obsolete equipment for air traffic controllers.
02:30The equipment, the towers have horrible equipment.
02:33It's been renovated for years.
02:34The money they spent over the last four years, this booted edge did a horrible job.
02:40They wasted billions and billions of dollars hooking up wire equipment to non-wire equipment to satellite equipment.
02:47And a third grade student would know it doesn't work, it can't work.
02:52And they wasted tens of billions of dollars.
02:55But we want to put a brand new air traffic control system in, and you might want to describe that, please.
03:01You and I have talked about this.
03:02It's a state-of-the-art system, envy of the world, and it's, I mean, listen, I don't, our system is safe.
03:09But you would have hoped someone would have seen that there's a problem with fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters coming in at DCA.
03:16Someone should have seen that before we lost almost 70 lives.
03:20It's our job to look and see that we have an aging infrastructure around air traffic control.
03:25And so if we don't build a brand new system, there's going to be failures and people will lose their lives.
03:31And so we need the help of Congress to help fund this.
03:35But it's going to be all brand new.
03:37And after you build a brand new system, we have the bedrock and the foundation to actually build on top of it.
03:43But no one has done this, Mr. President.
03:45There's Band-Aid fixes that have happened over the course of 20 years.
03:48You can't have a Band-Aid fix.
03:50It doesn't get done.
03:51It has to be brand new.
03:52The technology, it looks like it's out of a 1980s movie.
03:56Old computers, floppy disks.
03:59We're using copper wires, not fiber.
04:03So there are great solutions we have available.
04:06By the way, everyone's sick of their delayed flights or their canceled flights.
04:10We have more capacity in the airspace.
04:14And if we rebuild, not rebuild, if we build this brand new system, what you'll have is more efficiency in the airspace and it will be safer.
04:21So the economy will be stronger.
04:23We can have more flights and less delays.
04:24So I appreciate your support on that, Mr. President.
04:26Rebuilding, that is very important.
04:28You wouldn't have had the helicopter crashing into the plane at 400 feet up when it's supposed to be 200 feet.
04:34That would have, bells and whistles would have been gone over and you would have heard, you would have heard the screaming equipment saying there's a problem coming up in 15 seconds.
04:47You got to do something about it right now.
04:49And it would have, it would have also sent the word right into the helicopter because I guess you'll be doing the full report on that.
04:56But it was pretty obvious what happened.
04:59And there was supposed to be a 200 feet.
05:01There were 400 feet and a terrible thing.
05:03That wouldn't have happened if we had the right equipment.
05:05If we had the right equipment, you would have heard bells and whistles going off and it would have alerted them long before that would have happened.
05:12Two minutes before it would have had a lot of time.
05:15So we have to do this.
05:17We have no choice and we're going to do it and we're going to be very proud of it.
05:20They did old equipment and new equipment and you can't hook in old equipment to new equipment because it's a different, some is satellite and some is ground.
05:31The satellite doesn't work.
05:32This man would know that better than anybody, but you can't hook up a satellite system to a ground wired system.
05:38And if you do, you're wasting a lot of money.
05:40They spent billions.
05:41This is Buttigieg.
05:42They spent billions and billions of dollars trying to patch a system together.
05:47They had hundreds of different contractors and the contractors were all fighting with each other.
05:52We're going to have one great big contractor, like the great big beautiful bill, which is going along very well.
06:00I guess I like great big beautiful, but we're going to have one great big beautiful contractor, whether it's maybe Raytheon, maybe IBM, maybe it could be any one of four or five different groups.
06:11But you put one in charge, they're very big, very powerful monetarily, and they give you a guarantee and they hook up everything.
06:19They do every single thing.
06:20So they're responsible for the digging of the ditches and the fiber and every single element.
06:26And it's one system that's hooked in.
06:28It's not all these hodgepodge systems that don't work together.
06:32And it's just a shame.
06:34I mean, it's basic construction, but it's complex stuff.
06:39And there are a few companies that do it unbelievably well, and we're going to have that.
06:44So good job, John.
06:45I know that's your big project.
06:48And Mr. President, no one has done it because it is complex.
06:50It's hard to do because as you're building a brand new system, you have plans taken off and landing.
06:55And so because it's complex, no one has done it, and you've given the directive and the support to make this happen.
07:00So thank you.
07:00Well, ours is going to be an all-new system.
07:02It's going to all hook up.
07:03It's going to be the same tower.
07:05It's going to have the same equipment.
07:07And all towers all over the country, all over the world, actually, mostly, are going to be hooked in together.
07:13And when there's a problem, when planes are too close, you will hear a sound that's very ear-shattering.
07:20And I've heard it.
07:22And it's amazing.
07:23I mean, honestly, it's amazing.
07:24It's real genius stuff.
07:26And we didn't do that.
07:27What we did was just waste money.
07:29You could have just thrown it right out the window.
07:32What they did in this last four years was disgraceful, whether it was the border or this.
07:38You name a hundred different things.
07:40The worst administration ever.
07:41Okay.
07:42There you go.
07:42Okay.