WASHINGTON — On Day 23 of the Democrat Shutdown, Speaker Johnson held a press conference alongside Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, House GOP Leadership, and House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Sam Graves to discuss the strain of the Democrat Shutdown on air safety and air traffic controllers.
“These men and women have one of the most stressful jobs in America. They cannot be 99.5% accurate, or 99.9% accurate. They have to be 100% accurate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Speaker Johnson said. “And now they’re being forced to work longer hours, take on multiple jobs, and maintain the same level of excellence, all while Democrats hold their paychecks hostage.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.
On the Democrat Shutdown forcing air traffic controllers to suffer:
There’s another very important group of federal employees that we want to highlight today because they also aren’t getting paid, and the consequences are being felt around the country– air traffic controllers, some people call them the policemen of our skies. They have been showing up at work without pay. And news reports have suggested that these men and women are seeking outside employment just to keep their families afloat.
Some of them are working these long shifts, and then they’re hopping in a car and driving for Uber, or they’re delivering for DoorDash all night. And you just have to think about what a heavy thing that is. These men and women have one of the most stressful jobs in America. They cannot be 99.5% accurate, or 99.9% accurate. They have to be a hundred percent accurate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And now they’re being forced to work longer hours, take on multiple jobs, and maintain the same level of excellence again, all while Democrats hold their paychecks hostage. This is what one air traffic controller said in their own words in an article: “The financial anxiety doesn’t just hurt morale. It directly affects safety. When someone responsible for thousands of lives a day is worrying about whether they can pay rent or feed their kids, focus suffers.”
On the Democrat Shutdown causing flight delays and cancellations:
As a reminder, and this is pretty ominous, but you remember the article a few days ago where the Democrats were quoted that they won’t reopen the government unless “planes are falling out of the sky.” We pray to God it doesn’t come to that, obviously, but the longer the shutdown goes on, and as fewer air traffic controllers show up to work, the safety of the American people is thrown further into jeopardy. Now, I’m heartened that we have a leader like Secretary Duffy. He has an extraordinary team. We have extraordinary air traffic controllers in this country, and they are maintaining the safety against incredible odds. But right now, there are 13,000 air traffic controllers and more than 50,000 TSA officers who are showing up to work without pay.
Secretary Duffy is doing a great job to triage this. But he noted that normally just 5% of flight delays are the result of staffing shortages right now. That number of at least two days ago was 53% according to online flight tracking databases. There were 19,000 delayed flights from Saturday to Monday, and an additional 1,600 canceled flights during that same period. That number’s only going to increase as the Democrat Shutdown continues, especially as air traffic controllers are set to miss another paycheck on October 28th. We are rounding into a holiday season, as we all know, and we’re in the middle of the height of the football season. This is peak travel time for the us. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to travel to football games this weekend, for example. And if the current trajectory continues, many Americans could miss watching their favorite teams and reconnecting with friends and family. So, football fans, if you’re stuck in the airport this weekend while your favorite team is about to kick off, you can blame the Democrats for that. They own this shutdown, and they own the consequences too.
On Democrats admitting they are using American families as political pawns:
I want to be absolutely clear about this. Democrats would not have shut the government down this time if their political careers did not depend on it. And that is not some Republican talking point. That is the objective truth. If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, the number two Democrat in the House yesterday openly admitted to that fact. Katherine Clark is the House Democrat Whip; she works right under Hakeem Jeffries as the number one Democrat. And she was asked in an interview, she said to one of your colleagues that in here in the front row, “Of course, there will be families that are going to suffer, but this is one of the few leverage times we have.” It’s shocking to hear them say that out loud. By her own admission, she knows that the American people are suffering. Democrats know that millions of federal workers are desperate for their paychecks. They know that thousands of flights have been delayed. They know that SNAP benefits and nutrition assistance for women, infants and children are in jeopardy for millions of American families. And yet they don’t seem to care.
But you know what? Take heart America, take heart because all your suffering is for a good cause. It’s for the Democrats’ political leverage. That’s what the number two Democrat said here yesterday. It is utterly shameful. The obvious truth is that only a Democrat could get away with saying such abhorrent things without the media batting its eye. I guarantee you, if the tables were turned, if the Republicans were the ones holding the country hostage and openly admitting to it, it would be absolutely explosive. It’d be wall to wall coverage. And everybody in this room knows that every single mainstream media outlet, every newspaper in America, every single day, would have that on the top fold as the big headline. But of course, that’s not what’s happening right now.
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