Today on the Morning Update, much about air travel still needs work, but your President has worked diligently and responsibly to fix an issue he inherited from Obama and Biden, using common sense of all things, and the improvements are yuge.
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Ep 255 Links:
- https://granitegrok.com/national/2025/01/guess-why-were-so-short-staffed-on-air-traffic-controllers
- https://www.westernjournal.com/trump-fixed-bidens-air-traffic-controller-crisis-record-time-ditching-suicidal-dei-requirements
- https://x.com/secduffy/status/2086574114215493969?s=46
- https://justthenews.com/government/air-traffic-control-hiring-sees-huge-success-trump-pairs-existing-skills-open-jobs
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Edited Transcript:
Welcome to your September 4th, 2026 morning update
The January 29th, 2025, collision of a Sikorsky S-60 Black Hawk helicopter and a regional passenger plane over the Potomac River was a tragedy, a tragedy, but thanks to Donald Trump and Sean Duffy.
We learned a lot of things that inspired some immediate and long-range changes.
The root cause, as it turns out, started under Barack Obama. In 2014, his administration scrapped merit-based hiring for air traffic controllers, nd replaced it with a program that scored higher for skin color and ethnic background over actual ability.
DEI hires. Yay.
Obama did that, but Biden made it worse.
Demographic hiring practice expanded at the expense of ability. And then in 2001, the Biden administration and transportation secretary Pete Crash Buttigeig fired about 3,000 people. Why? They wouldn’t take the jab. They refused. They laid them all off.
Several thousand of them.
Trump inherited this FAA staffing shortage.
And a week after he took the oath of office, tragedy struck. That Sikorsky helicopter collided with that Bombardier passenger jet, and sixty-seven people died.
It’s actually kind of surprising that there weren’t more such incidents, given the elevated number of close calls reported at airports all over the country, and that understaffed, overworked, and grossly underskilled air traffic controllers were the cause.
At the time, I wrote, quote, The most obvious deficiency is air traffic controller staffing. Biden Buttigeig were focused on diversity rather than capability, as if someone who can’t decide what sex they are today can handle the job’s nonstop stress and demanding requirements. Skin color was also allegedly put ahead of skill, none of which appears to have filled the voids in the openings.
President Donald Trump and Secretary Sean Duffy went to work.
They dropped the DEI hiring strategy immediately and eventually adopted something called Best and Brightest.
Quote, The campaign released flashy YouTube ads incorporating footage from Popular games like Fortnite, Madden NFL, the League of Legends, along with Xbox branding under slogans such as you’ve been training for this and it’s not a game, it’s a career, while promoting average salaries exceeding $155,000 after three years paid training and government benefits, as a result, applications for the air traffic control specialist trainee role initially capped at 8,000 but ultimately drew over 12,000 submissions in a short period, which Duffy called wildly successful.
Gamers, it appears, problem-solve. They’re spatially aware; they do multiple things at the same time. And they do it at a fast pace for several hours at a time.
If they can handle all the other job skills, it’s game on, and the Trump administration has been leveling up. According to Duffy, the FAA has met 94% of its hiring goal, which it reached in record time, with over 2,000 applicants hired.
Not only is the Trump administration and Secretary Duffy filling a huge gap created by Biden and Buttigieg.
After they laid off thousands of air traffic controllers for no good reason.
They are replacing them based on merit, skill, ability, resilience, and mental toughness.
Having competent coworkers is also good for retention and morale.
It’s a high-stress job.
And I’m not saying a left-handed albino lesbian can’t do the job. I’m just saying that none of those things should supersede actual ability in the hiring process. A true, honest approach to public safety demands nothing less. You find skills and ability, and it doesn’t make any difference what they look like.
That’s it for today. We’ll talk to you on Monday.
