Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the "Biden-Buttigieg administration" for failures at airports that have happened during President Donald Trump's latest term in office.
During a Monday news conference, Duffy addressed repeated outages at Newark Liberty International Airport.
"We've all been reporting and seeing what's happening at Newark Airport," Duffy began. "And I think it is clear that the blame belongs with the last administration. [Former Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg and [former President] Joe Biden did nothing to fix the system that they knew was broken."
"So let's talk about what the Trump administration is doing moving forward, to fix the problems that were left to us from the Biden-Buttigieg administration," he continued.
Duffy said new fixes included upgraded communications lines, software patches, and increased air traffic controllers.
"I understand you're placing a lot of the blame on the previous administration," one reporter noted, "but these problems are happening now under the second [Trump] administration. Are you just unlucky, or are there some real issues that need to be addressed under this current administration?"
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"Is it your fault or is it the guy that you bought it from sold you a lemon?" Duffy replied. "And I think that is a known falsehood, known lie by the media. You all know that it's been cracking."
"And maybe when you work from home, or maybe when you work from Michigan as a secretary, you're not focused on the real issues that are taking place throughout the airspace," he added. "The Trump administration has inherited it. Donald Trump has said, we are going to fix it. We are not going to pass it off."
Duffy did not explain why Trump declined to improve airports during his first administration.
