Aaron Parnas reports on a nationwide FAA ground stop that grounded every flight in the United States and left millions of travelers stranded. He examines the President's silence during the disruption and his later blame of the Biden administration, and he sets out the FAA's explanation that new equipment overwhelmed an older system.
Parnas also covers reports of price gouging on rental cars and rideshares, a Justice Department investigation involving Senator Elizabeth Warren, and his argument that the speech or debate clause protects members of Congress. Listeners get a running account of the day's developments, with each side's claims presented as the speakers make them.
In this episode Aaron Parnas
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Two days. That's how long it took the President of the United States to say a single word about the fact that every flight in America was grounded. And when he finally spoke up this morning, he didn't take any responsibility. He didn't apologize to the millions of stranded travelers, and he didn't explain what went wrong. Instead, in true Trump fashion, he just blamed Joe Biden. Trump finally broke his silence on this, and then quickly pivoted back to his golf course. But right now, people across the United States of America are stranded. I barely got home last night, thankfully, after 4 cancellations in a row.
Right now, the price gouging is hitting stranded travelers. The Trump Justice Department, meanwhile, is threatening Elizabeth Warren before she even picks up her gavel. A judge blocked Trump's golf course land grab in Washington, and, well, the war in Iran continues to escalate. If you can, as always, subscribe to support this work. This channel is fully independent and funded by people like you, and we're growing fast. I know I ask a lot, but it does matter, and it does mean the world to me if you do. So thank you so much. Like, comment, share. And let's start with Trump, because two days ago the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop.
Every flight in the country was grounded. More than 3,500 planes were already in the air when it started. 827 flights were diverted. The longest nationwide ground stop in decades. I know this one firsthand because I was one of the people who stuck. Like a lot of you, I spent hours just trying to get home, and I do want to quickly say thank you to all of the flight attendants, airport staff, airport workers, pilots, everyone. It's not their fault, and they have been truly amazing during this time. But if you want to know where the President was, he wasn't commenting on any of it until this morning, when he came out and blamed the Biden administration, saying, quote, "The Biden administration was an FAA disaster.
Everything they touched turned bad. Big money spent unwisely, making an old and broken system worse than when they began. We had the knowledge and plan for the flight control systems. We need Congress to give the money fast. Our FAA is doing a great job and ready to go." And then went on to say, "If Congress approves the desperately needed money for air traffic control, we can get it built quickly and efficiently. It'll be the best system anywhere in the world. Much of our current air traffic control system is 50 years old.
Ridiculous. We have already started the work, but it should be done all at once, not in drips and drabs. Congress must approve the Biden administration set it back for years." But that's not what Mark Wayne Mullen and Sean Duffy were saying the night of the ground stop. See, the night of the ground stop, they acknowledged that it was actually the Trump administration's fault for trying to update the system middle of the day on a Friday afternoon.
For security, once again, we're still looking at it. We're not ruling out anything. What it appears to be right now is, as Secretary Duffy and FAA was going in and putting patches into the system, they were putting new equipment and new technology. And that new equipment, new technology, just wasn't it was overwhelming the older system, which is why Secretary Duffy made it very clear: the patchwork doesn't work. We need one complete system.
We need someone to come in and.
That's what they were saying that night. And this morning, Sean Duffy is making his rounds on various CNN and other platforms in an effort to try to save his job, because privately, behind the scenes, Duffy's days are numbered. And Duffy was asked plain blank, "Where was the President?" Take a listen.
Secretary, there was a nationwide ground stop only for the second time since 9/11. Millions of travelers were stranded. No information for a bit about what was happening. People were scared. They didn't know if it was a cyber attack or rogue AI or what. The President just made his first real public comments about this on social media this morning. Didn't Americans deserve to hear from him while this was going on?
So I, along with Mark Wayne Mullen by the way, I was in the air when this when we issued the ground stop landed, went right to the White House. I was in the Oval Office with Mark Wayne. We were talking to the President. The President told Stephen Miller, "This is a whole-of-government approach." So we were on a call with DNI, NSA, CISA.
But publicly, why didn't you hear from the President?
The President said, "Everyone work on this."
He was posting about social media.
You're not telling me that you don't hear from the President publicly? I mean, he does post.
No, I know. But that's what's so stunning about it, because he was posting on social media about the motion picture television entertainment, many posts about revitalizing a golf course. And that's why it's so noteworthy that we didn't hear from him for almost a day and a half.
I can just tell you this. I can tell you this. I was in constant contact. He was fully engaged, because this is important to him and it's important to America. So Mark Wayne and I were fully engaged with the President. We were in the Oval. I talked to him before we did the press conference. I talked to him after the press conference. So his engagement has been remarkable, and his insight into how we have to come together as Americans, ours indeed, to get this done is, I think, a sign of great leadership.
So.
So that's Sean Duffy's response to the fact that the President was nowhere to be found. And, well, the thing is, is that they're telling the American people more of these will come. And right now, folks across the country are struggling. Americans who faced cancellations and delays also faced price gouging. People faced surge prices for Ubers. I tried to get a rental car last night, and the only rental car that was available was $1,500. I would never pay for $1,500, and trust me, I did not.
Things like that, in times of crisis, big companies are actively taking advantage of everyday Americans. And it's something that needs to be called out, and it's something that needs to be talked about, and it's something we're going to investigate here. I do want to talk about one investigation, though, that was launched today. Moments ago, they're going after Senator Elizabeth Warren, a federal prosecutor in the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Aaron Wright of the Southern District of Texas, who, by the way, has consistently been the one that's been going after Senator Richard Blumenthal and now Senator Elizabeth Warren, issued a former litigation hold letter.
Warren is expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee after the Democratic wave. He is planning on going after her now, citing two federal criminal civil rights statutes, suggesting that investigating Trump and his associates could chill their First Amendment rights, saying, quote, "You appear eager to wield your future gavel like a tomahawk, hunting for the scalps of President's private associates." Now, I practice law, and this is not legal advice, but I'll tell you why this won't work. Article 1 of the Constitution contains what is called the speech or debate clause. It protects members of Congress from being questioned of anywhere else about their legislative work.
It exists specifically so that the executive branch cannot use its power to prosecute as a weapon against Congress. The Supreme Court has held that congressional investigations and subpoenas are protected legislative activity. No charges have been filed, and they won't be. They won't be able to. It doesn't mean that they're not going to try to threaten in the meantime. In addition, Trump's golf course was once again blocked. And, well, after blaming Biden for the FAA issue, he then blamed Biden for the golf course issue and went after Judge Reyes once again this morning.
And so that's the latest news right now. We also have the Iran war heating up and much more. We have a President who's disappearing during a crisis, blaming Biden, a Transportation Secretary warning about more outages, rental car companies cashing in on stranded travelers, Justice Department threatening senators for doing their jobs, and much more. If you value this coverage, please subscribe, share this video, and sign up today. We're building something big, and we're doing it with your support. And I'll see you soon with another update.
Aaron Parnas reports on the news of the day.
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