Transportation Secretary Duffy says nationwide FAA ground stop lifted

[0:00] You know, I want to make sure everybody understands that there is no connection [0:07] between this and Microsoft. I know a lot of people are making that jump. This is so far [0:15] what we've seen, there is actually no cyber attack. We're still working through that process. [0:24] Our teams are working. This is what the leadership of President Trump looks like [0:29] by the organization and the team he's put together. We're built to handle crisis like this. [0:36] And that's exactly what we're doing. We're moving at an unprecedented pace as a whole of government [0:44] to make sure that we are doing the public justice by making sure everybody is safe, [0:52] which everybody is. We are working with the airports, with the communities, with the cities, [0:59] the states, to make sure those passengers that may find themselves in need. FEMA has activated [1:06] their centers to make sure that there's no medication that is being missed. If it is, [1:12] we're going to have people for them to reach out to. The airport has got a direct number to reach out [1:18] to us. We can provide that medication for them working through the state. So right now, things seem [1:26] to be working, as we can say, in the right direction. As you can see to my right, I have Secretary Sean Duffy, [1:37] who is here to provide the update on FEMA, where we're at, and where we're going. Once Sean is completed [1:46] with this update, then we will be happy to take questions from everybody. I just want to reiterate [1:52] this. The public was never at danger through this process. There was never any lives at risk. [2:02] There was no flights at risk. FAA was able to handle it. We did it out of an abundant of caution. [2:09] But I do understand the Internet traffic and where all these conspiracies start running towards. I just [2:17] can't say this enough. All your loved ones are safe. We are working to resolve the issue. And we hope to [2:25] have operations up and going normal at some point. So with that, I'll turn it over to Secretary Duffy. [2:32] Thank you, Mark Wayne. And good night to everybody. First, I want to thank you for your partnership and [2:39] assistance. Mark Wayne has been great. Stephen Miller put together all of the intelligence assets [2:47] of the White House. We were in multiple times talking to the president about what was happening [2:51] in the airspace. Complete engagement by President Trump's team. So just I want to walk through what [2:58] happened today. So at 3.36 p.m., we experienced instability for our radar and our communications and [3:06] our centers and our TRACONs across the country. So if you don't know this, at airports, we have towers. [3:12] The next rung out is a TRACON. After that, we have en route centers. The TRACONs and the centers, [3:18] we started to have inconsistency in the data from the radars and our communication with airplanes. [3:25] And we have procedures for this. Our pilots are well trained. Our air traffic controllers are well [3:31] trained. And at that point, we issued a ground stop. We had over 3,500 airplanes in the air. [3:36] They all engaged. And last time I looked, we had less than 400 in the airspace as they were all coming [3:44] in to safely land. And we navigated it with our well-known procedures that we have when these [3:51] incidents happen. I'm going to talk about where we're at now. But before I do that, [3:55] when we shut down the airspace, oftentimes there are critical movements that have to take place, [3:59] whether it's medevac, there's cargo operations that are moving critical medicines that save people's lives. [4:05] We didn't lose all telecom. We didn't lose all radar. But that instability, because of abundance [4:11] of caution and making sure we keep the American flyer safe, we did the ground stop. But we were [4:16] going to allow those life-saving movements to still occur, as well as with law enforcement as well. [4:22] So what happened? I've heard a lot of the rumors like Mark Wayne has. But what we have is an incredibly [4:29] old air traffic control system. I think every single one of your networks have covered the [4:36] president and myself talking about this for the last two years. The president for the last year [4:41] has been asking Congress to fully fund a full build of a brand new air traffic control system. [4:48] So we have TDM telecom. So this is analog telecom. Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded [4:57] with data and they went down. And I shouldn't say they went down. They started to give us inconsistency [5:03] in the data from those routers. And because of that, we shut the system down. Now, I have already [5:11] replaced some of those switches with President Trump. And our new IP switches did not go down. [5:16] It's the old hardware that went down. And I think the question for the American people [5:21] is, do you want your Congress to fund this? President Trump has asked for the money. [5:28] He's asked the Congress on a bipartisan approach to say, give us the resources to build a state-of-the-art [5:36] air traffic control system. Let's not do a patchwork, a fix to a system that's critical for every single [5:43] family. It's not red. It's not blue. It's not Democrat. It's not Republican. It's American. [5:48] Give us the money to fix it. Now, if you look to the past administrations, going back 25 years, [5:54] $15 billion has been given to the FAA to fix this air traffic control system. And guess what? [6:02] Barely anything was done. We had a down payment. President Trump asked for it in the one big, [6:08] beautiful bill of $12.5 billion. We are building in that $12.5 billion. That portion of the build [6:15] will be done by the time President Trump leaves office. We are moving at a speed that has never [6:19] been seen before with regard to the FAA. But that's a partial funding. I think America demands [6:27] that the Congress give the rest of the resources to finish the build. And I think the Congress at a [6:35] point looked to the history of the FAA and said, we don't trust you. Well, with President Trump and [6:41] what we've done, I think they do trust because what we've done with that first tranche of money. [6:48] And so with a brand new state-of-the-art system, you won't have these outages. So what you experienced [6:53] today, but you can think back, many of you covered the story from a year and a half ago, we had outages [6:57] in Newark, multiple outages in Newark. This is a continual problem that we have, and it should be [7:04] fixed. And so what we want to do, I've asked, the President's asked for $30 billion. I want $50 [7:12] billion. And by the way, if you look at how much money Congressmen's, Peter, you've covered Congress, [7:17] they waste a lot of money. What's more important than having an air traffic control system that [7:22] actually works? And so the President said, you know what, let's finish this job. [7:27] New hardware, new software, new telecommunication. Many of our towers are almost 100 years old. [7:36] Our air traffic controllers have leaky roofs, air conditioning that doesn't work. They're high [7:40] in the air. Their elevators don't work. Their roofs leak. I want new towers. We should also invest in [7:46] many of the airports around the country that, frankly, many of them are embarrassing. Let's get [7:52] the money. Let's invest so we never have to come at 8.30 at night and have a press conference on why [7:59] air travel was shut down, why we have tens of thousands of people in airports separated from [8:05] their families without any knowledge of where they're going to sleep tonight. Now, you probably [8:11] picked up that we've identified the problem. We've got our centers and our TRACONs operational right now. [8:18] And so at 8.15 tonight, Eastern time, we've opened up the airspace. Now, does that mean every flight is [8:25] going to fly? Right now, it's going to be slow, right? So if you're watching, you're at an airport, [8:31] check with your airline. It depends on do we have crews available? Do we have pilots and flight [8:37] attendants available to fly your flight? We're going to try to move as many of those as we can tonight [8:41] if we have the capacity with crews to move those flights. If not, we're going to start tomorrow [8:47] morning with our airline partners moving those aircraft. But it's going to take us some time [8:53] to unwind what's happened this afternoon. Finally, with general aviation, if we have aircraft that's [9:02] moving six people, that's a lower priority. But this weekend, we have movements of aircraft that [9:10] are general aviation that might have 60, 80, 100 people on those aircraft. We are going to give [9:17] those aircraft a priority. So hopefully tomorrow, we are going to start to see a far better movement. [9:25] But we'll take your questions. This is an emergency. This is an emergency. I want Congress to give us [9:32] emergency funding. This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion. President Trump is a builder. [9:39] He's going to build this network and deliver for the American people. But the president can't deliver [9:44] for America unless the Congress delivers the money to make it happen. So with that, [9:50] we're happy to take your questions. Peter. Secretary Duffy, what you're describing, [9:55] routers overloaded with data. That's right. That then start to show instability. That sounds like [10:00] something that could be caused by a cyber attack. Can you say with 100% certainty that this was not [10:08] caused by a cyber attack or a rogue AI? I'm going to give this to Mark Wayne. [10:15] All right. We are there's nothing completely certain right now. It doesn't appear that way. We are [10:21] we've activated our teams. This is what Department of Homeland Security is all about. This is why we're stood [10:26] up to have a continuity of government to bring all the resources together in an emergency like this. [10:32] This is exactly what this is. This is a national emergency. We have all of our assets, be it from [10:38] D.O.W. to CISA to all of our knocks. Then all the other components we have inside of DHS. NSA is working [10:47] with us. There is nothing that indicates it yet. Now, when we start looking at cyber threats, [10:53] cyber attacks, typically some people is going to raise their hand up and say, hey, we did that. [10:58] There's no chatter. We haven't seen any any footprints, as you would say, or [11:04] or or or or identifications of people that got into the system. It appears that this was [11:11] mechanically driven. However, we're still looking. So we're not going to roll that out. I want to hit [11:17] back on to what Secretary Duffy said with the with the funding. This is a national security risk. [11:25] We just saw what took place when we have vulnerabilities and we have old systems. [11:29] The president has declared this a national emergency. And now we have to have Congress act [11:35] and fund it. This is vitally important that we get this system built. The president has said this. [11:42] Secretary Duffy has said this multiple times. Our air traffic control system is outdated and it hasn't [11:48] been a priority from Congress. And so it this is this is what happens when Congress kicks the can down [11:54] the road. But so when you say that you haven't seen footprints suggesting a cyber attack and nobody's [11:59] taking credit for a cyber attack. Have you seen any evidence specifically? Can you tell people who are [12:04] watching? We have seen we have seen we have seen zero evidence. We've seen zero evidence that this was that [12:11] this was a cyber attack or SI attack. So then it must be something else. What is the other thing? What caused the [12:18] instability? So it's very easy. We have old old switches, old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines. It's an old system [12:33] that went down and went down everywhere. It got overloaded. So so what here right now we've opened up [12:41] the airspace. We've got our centers and our trade cons operational. It would be much and I don't want to [12:46] rule out that we didn't have nefarious activity here. That's Mark Wayne and the cybersecurity team that works [12:53] with us. We were able to deploy fixes to reduce the overloading on our on our on our switches that [13:03] were able to bring the networks back online and our trade cons and our centers back online. So I think [13:08] our fix gives us a pretty good indication that it was a legacy network problem that went down. And by [13:16] the way, all of the new equipment that we put in, none of that went down. This is all the old legacy [13:22] equipment that's existed forever. By the way, none of your networks run on 1980 technology. You all [13:28] got fiber, state of the art, high speed networks that that cover all of your stations, but not the [13:35] FAA. I think the American people deserve the same same kind of network that you all use the same kind [13:41] of connectivity and speed that you all use. That's what we're asking the Congress to give us. [13:45] One question for each of you. Mr. Mullen, are you able to completely rule out [13:51] foreign interference? And then, Mr. Duffy, you're talking about old systems being to blame here. [13:57] The ground stop is lifted, but this is not going to get fixed overnight. Thousands of flights have been [14:01] delayed. Thousands of flights have been canceled. How can you assure the American people that it is [14:07] going to be safe to fly? And how long is it going to take for flights to be fully operational and back to [14:13] normal? So let's talk about the cybersecurity. Once again, we're still looking at it. We're not [14:18] rolling out anything. What it appears to be right now is as Secretary Duffy and FAA was going in and [14:24] putting patches into the system, they were putting new equipment and new technology. And that new [14:35] equipment, new technology just wasn't, it was overwhelming the older system, which is why [14:40] Secretary Duffy made it very clear. The patchwork doesn't work. We need one complete system. We need [14:47] someone to come in and build the whole system. Doing it nickel and diamond together does not work. This [14:52] is what happens when that takes place. That's why the president has made it very clear. We can't do this. [14:58] It has to be a complete overhaul of the system, which we estimate to be about $50 billion. However, [15:05] out of abundance of caution, we are still going to do everything we can to rule it out. If that [15:11] changes, we will let you know. But it doesn't appear right now that this was anything to do but [15:17] with technology. So to answer your question, this is not going to get done overnight. You're right. [15:21] But when do you want to start it? America, when do you want to start building a brand new system? [15:28] Well, you have a team with President Trump that actually is building it right now, [15:33] but we don't have full funding. And so I think there's no better time than the present [15:37] to actually give us the money and let us finish the build. What went down was old, [15:44] right? It was the old legacy equipment. It failed. And listen, it's going to continue to fail. [15:49] But my number one job is America's safety. That is my first charge. And so if you look at what [15:59] happened today, we had a failure. And what happened? We effectively and safely got aircraft [16:06] out of the airspace, right? And sometimes people will complain. Why did you shut the airspace down? [16:11] We just had an incident a couple months ago in New York where that system went down. There's a telecom [16:17] issue. We will shut the system down. I want you to fly safely. If you miss a baseball game, [16:23] you miss a wedding, I care about you getting there without any harm. And so, again, this is a time [16:32] you have a build a president. We can play politics. By the way, play politics all you want on all kinds [16:37] of issues. That's great. And there's a lot of issues to play politics on. This is not one of those [16:41] issues. This is an American issue, an American build with an American president that knows how [16:46] to do it. [16:47] Sir, thank you. Will this cascade to Thanksgiving travel plans for college students coming home, [16:54] do you expect to see delays, cancellations, even though our days are out? [16:57] That's a great question. So I believe that it's going to take us some time to get back to capacity [17:04] and then get people who were disrupted over the course of the last eight hours to get them back [17:11] to their destination. So we're going to have some makeup to do. I would imagine a lot of my kids are [17:15] flying next Friday back from college. I imagine that's when a lot of kids are flying and everyone [17:19] starts their Thanksgiving travel, which, by the way, is a very busy time for travelers. I think we're [17:24] going to be back up and operational as we come into the heat of travel during Thanksgiving. [17:31] And one more. You said earlier you mentioned medical flights. Organ transplants are still [17:35] being flown across the country? [17:36] Yes, we don't stop those. Because it wasn't a complete outage, it was just we were getting [17:42] varying degrees of our inputs from radar and from telecom. We were able to still fly those [17:52] flights safely. And we understand people's lives are basically in the hands of these flights being [17:58] able to get from point A to point B. So we were allowing those to go, as well as law enforcement. [18:02] The tanker rip crash today down in New Orleans. I mean, Terry, I'm sure you saw the video. Do you have [18:08] any idea how that happened? And that tanker runs right to the side of it. What are you learning? [18:12] That's the Coast Guard. [18:13] Yeah, this looks like it was an engineer, major engineering defect that took place during either [18:24] they hit the bridge or something caused the ripple effect. I do want to announce, though, [18:31] by the grace of God, we have not lost one soul. There was 195 souls on board. All 195 souls are [18:40] accounted for. 32 are at the hospital. We're still in various conditions. But my last report was there was no [18:49] critical conditions that was taking place. So just just an absolute miracle there. But once again, not connected at all. [19:00] That was that was something that took place. [19:02] Mr. Secretary, you are having a war against Iran. Was there any input at all beyond this incident that there were [19:14] Iranian elements or any other elements who may be plotting? No, we're not. We're not we're not seeing [19:19] that. We're not seeing that at all. Yes. [19:21] Thank you so much. Thank you guys for your coordination about this emergency. Speaking of [19:24] college, a huge industry that relies on travel to begin is college football. Have you guys been in [19:28] communication with these universities and do you plan to implement any sort of coordination there? [19:33] Yeah. So as I mentioned, we're going to allow for general aviation, those larger movements to take place [19:39] as a priority. Smaller movements will will take a lower priority. And so if you talk about football [19:45] teams moving, many of those are on charters and there's a lot of individuals on those charter planes. [19:50] So I would encourage those football teams to reach out to the FAA to schedule their flight times and [19:57] make sure they can move to make sure we have games going off tomorrow. [20:02] Mr. Thank you. Thank you. Cameron from town hall. Has there been any communication with the major [20:10] commercial airlines? And can you just clarify what rights do passengers have right now? I know you [20:15] mentioned FEMA, but what other rights? Yeah, so we are in communication with all of our airline partners. [20:21] We're making them aware as soon as we can with what the issues are, right, because they're also concerned. [20:26] Was this cyber? What what took place where we had a ground stop? [20:29] And when Mark Wayne and our and our airlines are navigating the passengers who are stranded in airports, [20:38] but we work fully with them as we come back online and what what planes [20:44] we can move as quickly as possible to get people to their final destinations. [20:49] And this is one of those scenarios where this is not the fault of the airline. [20:53] But this is again, there's I'm happy to blame the airlines. I'm happy to blame the weather, [20:58] but I'm also happy to take the blame when it's with the FAA and air traffic control. And this is [21:04] a legacy system problem that took place tonight. And we have to handle it accordingly. [21:11] Thank you, sir. [21:12] Just describe how this manifested in the air today. Were airplanes still able to communicate with air [21:18] traffic controllers? How did it specifically impact that? And separately, do you have any sort of an [21:23] estimate at this point of the economic impact of this stoppage and where that goes from here? [21:28] So we had intermittent communication and intermittent radar and which is why we then shut the airspace [21:37] down. So it wasn't a complete blackout in communication or radar. So we were able to keep some of those [21:44] communications going. But when you when you have issues and you can't immediately communicate and [21:48] immediately see where aircraft are at, that's a risk that we're unwilling to tolerate. In regard to [21:54] economic consequences of what happened today, I think it underscores how important aviation is to [21:58] our economy. We haven't done a calculation. We've been I got off and I was on the airplane, an airplane [22:04] from Dallas when this happened, hence my attire and haven't gone to change. So I apologize for wearing [22:09] a jacket and jeans with you. There'll be time to do an economic analysis. But this is critical for the [22:16] American economy, which is why the Congress, I'm going to say it a million times, the Congress has [22:21] to give the resources to the president so we can finish this bill. Just to be clear to follow up, [22:28] that means there were times when airplanes and air traffic controllers were not communicating with each [22:33] other at all. So that can happen. Yes. And what happened, we have, we have, we have a big safety risk. [22:38] Well, we have emergency procedures in place. If this happens, pilots know what to do and air traffic [22:44] controllers know what to do. And whether it's systems on airplanes that are still operational, [22:49] it's still communication, though not not consistent, we're able to navigate the airspace. [22:56] And as you saw today, we systematically but slowly brought down 3,500 plus aircraft safely across the [23:04] national airspace, which I want to give credit to the pilots and to our air traffic controllers who [23:09] are very well trained and know how to navigate this situation. Are you saying that it was the FAA [23:15] patching a system that caused this outage? No. Is that something that's happening constantly? [23:22] So yeah, that's, I want to clarify that. This is our old TDM analog system that got overloaded with data [23:34] and started to experience these issues. And it was in our trade cons and our centers throughout the NAS. [23:39] Now, we do have some in our trade cons and centers that have been upgraded to, [23:45] to digital, to IP. Those did not experience these issues, which underscores the point, [23:51] it's important that we're able to finish this work with additional resources. [23:55] Would that have to be confident that this vulnerability won't be an issue again [24:00] in the coming weeks if what today took place happened and it's still a problem? [24:04] This is a great question. So listen, I can't, I can't build things if I don't have money. [24:10] Like this is, this is, this is a great question that you ask. How can America be confident? [24:14] Well, we do everything whether we have, we have the busiest airspace in the world bar none. [24:19] We have the safest airspace in the world bar none. No one competes with us [24:22] on safety or complication of the airspace. But if you ask the question, [24:27] what should we do? Well, we should talk to our senators and our members of Congress [24:30] to say, we don't, we don't deserve this America. This is the greatest country, [24:34] by the way, with the greatest president. Let's give the money to fix this very real problem. [24:39] And this is not the first time we had this happen in New York when we had all global leaders were [24:45] flying in for the UN. We had a similar issue. We had an issue in Newark. It happened twice. [24:51] How many times does this have to happen before Congress gives the money to fix it? [24:56] But the Trump administration has been in office for almost two years now, sir. So why hasn't this [25:01] been a bigger priority for the president? Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and still do. [25:05] What would not work? Let me see. So maybe you haven't covered the 100 plus press conferences [25:13] that I've done on this issue that have been led by the president. But I know Fox has. Peter's [25:19] carried the story. I know many of you have covered the story about the president's ask and my ask to get [25:25] the money. Right. And so I identify, I identify, well, because the Congress has to give it to us. [25:31] Right. And you need it. You need it. Well, oftentimes it's a great point. Oftentimes you need [25:38] a bipartisan vote. Right. So I did get partial funding through one big, beautiful bill. I got 12 [25:44] and a half billion. And with that money, we are, we are, we are spending it and spending it well. [25:50] But the Congress at the time knew that, um, that was not going to be enough. By the way, I, I, this [25:56] is bipartisan, but on that bill, I didn't have Democrats that voted for it. We now have an [26:01] opportunity in an emergency funding bill before the end of the year to give the money. And I think [26:06] the question should be from NBC to every member, do you support actually modernizing, making a state [26:13] of the art air traffic control system? And it's going to take us some time. I can't snap my fingers and [26:18] build a network overnight. But do you want us to build this for America? And I think [26:23] every member of Congress should say yes, but every American, I guarantee you would tell those members, [26:28] yes, give President Trump, give Duffy the money, let them finish this job so we don't have to do a [26:33] press conference at 830 at night ever again. And if you can't, sir, by your building the new system, [26:40] is it safe to fly? How, what, how do we know this isn't going to happen again tomorrow when you bring in new [26:45] passions? So, so this is, this is the safest system in the world. And by the way, it hasn't [26:50] been done in the past because it is complicated. This is, I don't want to lie to anybody. This is, [26:55] what we're doing is hard. And it hasn't happened in the past because it is hard. But I'll tell you, [27:00] by doing nothing, you inject way more risk into the system, right, to use 1980s technology, 1990s software, [27:11] to use 1970s radar that we don't make parts for anymore, to have an old network, an old network [27:19] configuration from the 80s versus re-networking the air traffic control system through the FAA. [27:26] I believe that should be a priority. And we, our number one, our number one mission when we do any [27:31] of this is safety. But if you do nothing, the system doesn't get more safe, it gets less safe. [27:39] And so I would say, America, Congress, let's make this system more safe. Let's continue to lead, [27:45] we led the world in aviation. We led it in the jet age. We've led in space. Let's continue to lead [27:52] with a state-of-the-art, a system that no one has, that's the best in the world. But that takes cash. [27:57] I understand the image of the old system and what kind of ins and outs there. [28:05] Why wasn't the agency prepared for some kind of catastrophic failure like we saw today? [28:09] Well, I can't anticipate every catastrophic failure that will happen with a TDM network, [28:15] with an analog network. But shouldn't there have been a backup plan in place in case this network [28:19] failed? You knew it was an old system you were trying to replace to keep you old in the air? [28:24] So I didn't anticipate that we would have an outage like this. We've had small outages [28:31] that I've mentioned previously. We didn't think we would have this kind of outage. We did. And what [28:38] I would tell you is the systems that were deployed kept everybody safe, everyone landed, [28:44] we're able to review what went wrong and then reboot the system and go. But you will have more of these. [28:51] You will have more of them unless the American people in the Congress tell us to build. [28:57] And I can't wait for that. [28:58] You say this is the priority for President Trump. Why have we not heard from him at all on this issue? [29:04] Oh, well, the two of us have talked to him. I've talked to him on the phone. I've talked to him [29:09] in the Oval. So is Mark Wayne. I don't run the President's comms. I just know that Mark Wayne [29:15] and I are going to come out and talk to you about it. But I know he's fully engaged because he has [29:19] communicated with the both of us multiple times from the point that it happened to moments before [29:25] I came out. I was in constant communication. Mark Wayne and I were in the Oval with him, [29:29] which, by the way, I appreciate his leadership. And what's just unique about the President [29:34] is he loves aviation. He loves the airspace and which is why he has been so engaged on this. [29:41] He understands it very well. And he's been frustrated from my first before I actually was [29:46] sworn in. He was talking about how old the system is, how past administrations had failed, [29:52] and how he wants to fix the air traffic control system in America and deliver the best in the world. [29:57] And it takes a president's leadership like President Trump to make sure we can ask the Congress and get [30:03] the money and give the deliverables. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I'm curious. [30:07] I don't think we have clarity yet. What was different about today specifically? The system [30:11] has been in place for a long time. Why did today the system go out? And can you give more clarity? [30:17] You're saying this will happen again. Should Americans feel safe when they fly if these [30:21] outages are still possible? In what kind of vintage you'll have it happen again? I don't know. [30:26] Right? Is this exact thing going to happen again? I don't know that this exact scenario will happen. [30:31] But I did have New York a couple months ago. I had Newark a year and a half ago. So we're still [30:39] working on the details of what went wrong today. I'll be happy to give you more information when we [30:44] have it. I don't want to give you the wrong information. Our team is working overtime trying to [30:50] navigate what happened here, what was the cause, and how do we prevent it in the future should similar [30:57] situations arise? Do you have anything to do with the AI program? You guys just introduced the SMART [31:01] program from the FAA. So as I mentioned, this is all the old legacy equipment. All of the new [31:09] equipment that's been deployed did not go down. Our SMART system, which is a system that we have a feed [31:14] for the whole airspace, that's going to help us better manage trajectories of airplanes and better [31:19] manage weather so we can one, drive safety in the airspace and drive efficiency in the airspace. [31:26] But that SMART system isn't plugged in to STARS and ERAM. It's not, this is, this is completely [31:33] disconnected. And I love that some people have said this would be the root cause. By the way, [31:37] if it was, I'll tell you, I'll tell you that. But this is not even plugged in. What this does is [31:42] gives information from the airspace to a human being and gives them a prompt on how they could better [31:49] navigate weather or trajectories. Then the human being will actually decide to accept or deny that prompt. [31:55] So we're not even tied in. So there's no possible way SMART would have impacted what happened today. [32:00] And then for Senator Samoa, you said today that there was no one in any danger. [32:03] I'm curious, for people who are frustrated right now about the fact that their flight's been delayed [32:07] or canceled, why was there a ground stop put in place for five hours if no one was in any danger? [32:11] Well, let me explain that one very easy. No one was in danger because procedures we put in place. [32:19] The system went down. We reacted the way that we were trained to react. And everybody came together. [32:25] President Trump immediately had had people in his office. We were communicating. Secretary Duffy, [32:31] the FAA took immediate actions that they had put in place to assure everybody was safe. And that's why [32:38] you saw we had, as Secretary Duffy had said, we had over 3000 flights in the air. We had a ground [32:45] stoppage and they were all able to land safely, even with the communication problems. And I just can't [32:51] speak enough about President Trump's leadership. This is what President Trump does. He puts leaders [32:56] in place and he allows them to lead. To even ask, you know, why is the president not talking? It's [33:05] because he's allowed Secretary Duffy and us to go out there and explain to you what took place. [33:11] President Trump trusts his leadership. And that's why we really lean in towards his leadership. And [33:17] when Secretary Duffy said he's the greatest president we've had, you've never had a builder [33:23] and a leader like President Trump lead this nation, have a vision and put the, [33:27] put the team together. Um, thank you guys so much. Appreciate it. [33:30] Secretary Duffy, stop your only option moving forward. [33:34] Secretary Duffy, stop your only option moving forward. [33:36] Are there enough hotel rooms for passengers? [33:36] This has to do with L3 Harris? [33:38] How does this affect the G20? [33:39] Right here. [33:41] Be sure to like and subscribe for all the Fox News latest on YouTube and catch full shows streaming now on Fox One.