U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is under fire for deflecting blame over the escalating crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport—issues his department has yet to resolve. Critics point to his references to “cracks in the system” nationwide and a so-called “Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan” that, so far, lacks meaningful public detail.
Politico described the Secretary’s lack of specifics by saying that the “Trump administration has closely held the exact contents of Duffy’s plan, but it’s likely to contain some combination of investments in new technologies, facilities upgrades and consolidation along with money for air traffic controller retention and hiring and overhauling the FAA’s infrastructure that allows facilities to communicate together.”
There is already “a multibillion-dollar FAA program called NextGen, which aims to transition the country away from passive radars to a satellite-based system for tracking planes, has been ongoing since 2003,” including during the Biden administration. And, as Politico also reported, the “agency is also in the early stages of a $2.4 billion, 15-year contract with Verizon, issued during the Biden administration, to replace the copper wires that have plagued Newark with modern fiber-optic cables across the country.”
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But according to Secretary Duffy, “Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.”
Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.
We are fixing the problem. Here are the actions @USDOT is taking now. pic.twitter.com/i73WBOYKrh
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 13, 2025
National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler commented, “if this guy would just stop blaming the President whose efforts to fix FAA Republicans refused to fund and did something he might actually fix the problem. Stop whining, Crash @SecDuffy. Please do your job and stop whining.”
Duffy has repeatedly attacked his predecessor and the prior administration, attempting to blame the current crisis on them.
“So the blame belongs to the last administration?” asked former Marine F/A-18 pilot and Democratic former political candidate Amy McGrath. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The last administration passed major legislation for funding the fix [to transportation] infrastructure problems DESPITE Republicans (like Duffy) voting against it for years.”
“More lies from another failed reality show contestant,” charged U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY). “Also, pointing fingers instead of addressing our current air traffic issues? Passengers are delayed, airlines are struggling & ATC is understaffed. We need action, not excuses. Less blame game, more solutions.”
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CNN’s David Axelrod mocked Duffy, writing: “Nothing like taking responsibility.”
And Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, added, “when Sean Duffy was a congressman, he and other Republicans voted against upgrading air traffic control systems. Now, he’s trying to blame those systems for Newark airport’s outages – while claiming DOGE’s cuts of critical support staff at the FAA had nothing to do with it. Hello?”
Secretary Duffy on Tuesday warned, “We’re starting to see cracks in the system.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Reporter: You have been saying that this is a decades-old problems. Why didn’t this administration initiate change in the first term?
Duffy: The President was going to fix it four years ago but the last administration did nothing about it pic.twitter.com/L3KXKHQHeJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 12, 2025
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Image via Reuters
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