Independent journalist Aaron Parnas tore into President Donald Trump for staying out of sight Friday as a rare nationwide ground stop stranded thousands of travelers.
The Federal Aviation Administration halted departures nationwide for more than four hours over what officials called a telecommunications outage — only the third such ground stop in U.S. history, after the Sept. 11 attacks and a 2023 FAA computer failure.
“There is mass outrage right now at Donald Trump — why? Because he’s nowhere to be found,” Parnas said in a video. “The president posted twice on Truth Social during that time, neither had to do with this massive, massive outage.”
One post touted Trump’s push to revive Hollywood, while the other concerned the Coast Guard. Trump’s only explanation came secondhand through Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who said the president told him by phone that the outage may have stemmed from “old broken stuff.”
Asked why Americans hadn’t heard from Trump, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he doesn’t “run the president’s comms” but that he and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin were in constant contact with him.
At a White House briefing, Duffy blamed “an incredibly old air traffic control system,” saying outdated switches and routers became overloaded — a failure officials tied to new technology being added to the system.
Washington Examiner national security reporter Anna Giaritelli, however, told CNN’s Laura Coates she had spoken with 60 air traffic controllers and “none of them are buying what he said.”
“These types of switches that the FAA is doing, they don’t happen during the day, they don’t happen during busy times like a Friday afternoon,” Giaritelli said. “They’re doing these midweek, middle of the night when there is no air traffic going on.”
Duffy also pressed Congress for $50 billion in emergency funding to overhaul the system.
“Give us the money to fix it,” he said.
Funding for the FAA has soared under the second Trump administration. The agency’s enacted budget hit $38.5 billion in fiscal year 2025 — up 53.5% from the year before — fueled by $12.5 billion for air traffic control upgrades from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Duffy made a similar plea in September after a communications failure snarled flights along the East Coast.