A top Fox News host was shocked after Donald Trump’s transportation secretary couldn’t explain why a U.S. Army helicopter grounded two flights at a D.C. airport last week.
The Ingraham Angle‘s Laura Ingraham questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Monday after an Associated Press report revealed the Army was pausing helicopter flights at D.C.’s Reagan International Airport.
The pause came after a Black Hawk helicopter labeled a “priority air transport” helicopter forced two commercial planes to remain at the airport.
“Who was the VIP?” she asked. After Duffy said he and the Federal Aviation Association—which his department oversees—didn’t know and promised to find out, Ingraham couldn’t contain her exasperation.
“Who do we ask?” she said. “You’re the transportation secretary, how do you not know?”
Duffy agreed with Ingraham and said the Defense Department had to explain why a Pentagon official bothered with the flight. “Who do these generals think they are that they have to take helicopters to go to meetings?” he said.
The revelation came as the FAA has been plagued by staffing issues among air traffic controllers that has caused massive delays and cancellations at Newark International Airport. Duffy has said the department was working to get at least 2,000 air traffic controllers hired this year and get to full staffing in “three to four years.”
It also came months after a Black Hawk helicopter flying out of Reagan International Airport crashed into an American Airlines flight in January, killing 67 people.
Duffy claimed he asked the Defense Department, run by former Fox News colleague Pete Hegseth, to explain “with radical transparency” who could charter a military helicopter out of the airport and disrupt plane traffic.
“Well, could you just call up Hegseth?” Ingraham asked.
“Well, I should, actually,” Duffy said, before turning the tables on Ingraham. “Why don’t you call him?”
Ingraham laughed before grabbing the cellphone positioned to her desk. “I’ll call him right now!” she said.
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