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Speaker 2: Incredible to see if you're with us on Bloomberg Tv
Speaker 2: or on YouTube. Flights taken off from the runways at
Speaker 2: DCA operations trying to get back to normal, even as
Speaker 2: recovery crews are still working.
Speaker 3: In the Potomac.
Speaker 4: As we see, I can't imagine flying into the airport
Speaker 4: on this day, but you're right, they start a little
Speaker 4: bit later than they had planned. In the noontime hour,
Speaker 4: we saw the first flight takeoff and land at Reagan
Speaker 4: National Airport. They had been, of course, stopped a full
Speaker 4: ground stop, and that whole area was kind of strange actually,
Speaker 4: how quiet it was this morning, Kaylee. I look pretty
Speaker 4: close to the airport and drive by there on my
Speaker 4: way into work. It's usually a pretty busy affair at
Speaker 4: rush hour. It felt like a Sunday.
Speaker 2: Morning, well in a busy airport, usually with a lot
Speaker 2: of congestion concern which is being raised anew in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the events today, not just when it comes
Speaker 2: to commercial airspace, but airspace that is also shared with
Speaker 2: the US military, which is what has resulted obviously stress
Speaker 2: tragic events and of course the largest air tragedy in
Speaker 2: terms of fatalities in the United States we have seen
Speaker 2: in about fifteen years, since two thousand and nine. And
Speaker 2: on that note, we want to turn to the person
Speaker 2: who was Secretary of Transportation newly minted himself at that time,
Speaker 2: Former Secretary Rayla Hood is with us now here on
Speaker 2: Bloomberg TV and Radio. Sir, thank you very much for
Speaker 2: your time. Obviously, this is something I'm sure no one
Speaker 2: in a Secretary of Transportation position wants to have to
Speaker 2: deal with. Just walk us through what is actually happening
Speaker 2: in the department, the NTSB, the FAA right now as
Speaker 2: we speak. And for Sean Duffy, having gone through this
Speaker 2: yourself all these years ago.
Speaker 5: Oh, I think Sean has done a good job. In
Speaker 5: terms of being in the job for only two days.
Speaker 5: It's a very tough situation to be put in. I'm
Speaker 5: glad the President has named someone as acting FAA Administrator,
Speaker 5: a very very important position and has responsibility for air
Speaker 5: traffic controllers and the FAA generally, I think we should
Speaker 5: reach out and our hearts do go out to the
Speaker 5: family members as they wait to hear about their loved
Speaker 5: ones that have perished and some have been found, some
Speaker 5: haven't been found. I think our attention should really be
Speaker 5: on the family members and thoughts and prayers with them.
Speaker 5: I think really the questions that have been raised and
Speaker 5: the answers to those questions won't be really solved until
Speaker 5: the NTSB really delves into this and investigates it. This
Speaker 5: is an agency that's independent, it's not given to any politicaliosophy.
Speaker 5: Of extraordinarily talented people at the NTSB career people, professional people.
Speaker 5: Many of them have been involved in investigations of plane
Speaker 5: crashes all over America and some around the world, so
Speaker 5: they know what they're doing. They do take their time
Speaker 5: and deliberate and collect all the information. Obviously, or want
Speaker 5: to look at the black boxes in the plane, in
Speaker 5: the helicopter. They want to listen to the tapes from
Speaker 5: the air traffic controllers and their conversations with the pilot
Speaker 5: of the American Eagle flight UH and then talk to
Speaker 5: as many people as they possibly can and and so
Speaker 5: this is uh. This will be a lengthy investigation and
Speaker 5: but NTSB will get to the bottom of it and
Speaker 5: they will identify what the issues are. Now for starters,
Speaker 5: we know that this is one of the busiest airspaces
Speaker 5: in the country. You have Dallas Airport, an international airport.
Speaker 5: You have Reagan Airport an international airport. You have Baltimore
Speaker 5: which is nearby an international airport. You have a lot
Speaker 5: of general aviation airports. You have the military at the
Speaker 5: Andrews Air Force Base and other places where helicopters take off.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of activity in a very in
Speaker 5: a very very busy airspace, and I'm sure the NTSB
Speaker 5: will be looking at that also and trying to determine
Speaker 5: if there are too many planes and helicopters in the
Speaker 5: air at one time. And so there'll be a lot
Speaker 5: of activity over the next several months. But the NTSB
Speaker 5: will get us answers.
Speaker 3: Well, we do look forward to some answers.
Speaker 4: Secretary of Hood, I don't know how you feel about
Speaker 4: the President speaking and advance sharing his opinion on what
Speaker 4: happen and how that kind of impacts the way people
Speaker 4: are looking at this whole process. That is very deliberate
Speaker 4: to your point, professionals working at the NTSB with an
Speaker 4: enormous amount of experience. But he's talking about your former administration.
Speaker 4: I don't know what you think about this, he said.
Speaker 4: I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best
Speaker 4: to extraordinary. When I left office and Biden took over,
Speaker 4: he changed them back to lower than ever before.
Speaker 3: I put safety first.
Speaker 4: Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. This kind
Speaker 4: of language was pretty unusual to hear from the White
Speaker 4: House briefing room as a recovery operation is still underway.
Speaker 3: Secretary, what's he talking about?
Speaker 5: I think we don't want to get ahead of the NTSB.
Speaker 5: You don't want to get ahead of the professionals who
Speaker 5: will go in depth on the causes of the crash
Speaker 5: and they'll make.
Speaker 4: You see right that the Obama administration changed safety standards though,
Speaker 4: or can we knock that down together right now?
Speaker 5: Well, if you look at the statement that I made
Speaker 5: before the Commerce Committee for my nomination, I talked about
Speaker 5: safety number one priority. If you look at the four
Speaker 5: and a half years that we were at DOT, we
Speaker 5: implemented some of the highest safety standards for every mode
Speaker 5: of Transportation, and when the Colgan air crash occurred in
Speaker 5: February of twenty nine, I was new in the secretary's position.
Speaker 5: I reached out to the families. I talked to all
Speaker 5: of the families. I reached out to Congress with the families,
Speaker 5: and with Congress we passed one of the highest People
Speaker 5: complimented us on the legislation that Congress passed for more
Speaker 5: pilot training, for more pilot rest, for making sure that pilots.
Speaker 5: In the case of Colgan, it was during an ice
Speaker 5: storm as they were coming into Buffalo, New York that
Speaker 5: caused the plane to crash, plus not proper training by
Speaker 5: the pilots. And I've never really heard any criticism of
Speaker 5: the time that we were there four and a half years,
Speaker 5: of any compromise of safety. We took safety as the
Speaker 5: highest priority. You talked to anybody in the industry about
Speaker 5: our administration and our priority on safety, and we get
Speaker 5: very high marked. So look at We will wait to
Speaker 5: see what the NTSB says, But in terms of safety,
Speaker 5: during my time at DOT, the highest standards were set. Now,
Speaker 5: I think if you talked to the families of the
Speaker 5: Colgan air crash or to Congress passed a safety bill,
Speaker 5: safety for pilots, more training for pilots. They will tell
Speaker 5: you we worked very hard in a bipartisan way to
Speaker 5: get to the highest safety standards.
Speaker 2: Well, and we appreciate that look back, sir, But if
Speaker 2: we could look forward as well, and we consider Reagan Airport,
Speaker 2: which has had much debate around the addition of flight
Speaker 2: slots last year to different destinations across the US ten
Speaker 2: round trip plates in total, these questions around military aircraft
Speaker 2: having to share space and adjust altitudes with commercial aircraft.
Speaker 2: Do you see the need for changes here in terms
Speaker 2: of congestion at this airport, specifically given its proximity to
Speaker 2: the nation's capital.
Speaker 5: Well, I believe there's way way too much activity in
Speaker 5: that region. And for what I said before, three major
Speaker 5: international airports, General Aviation Airports, Andrews Air Force Base, the
Speaker 5: Military Air Command that exists very Reagan, and I think
Speaker 5: that will be looked at by the NTSB. It's a
Speaker 5: very very crowded airspace and I think the NTSB will
Speaker 5: take a very very careful look at that. Last year
Speaker 5: when Congress passed additional slots, additional opportunities for aircraft to
Speaker 5: fly into Reagan, I thought that was a mistake. There's
Speaker 5: just too much congestion.
Speaker 4: One of those flights that was added was, in fact
Speaker 4: the route from Wichitsaw that airplane was flying last night.
Speaker 4: Secretary of the Hood Donald Trump was asked if how
Speaker 4: he can come to the conclusion that diversity was involved
Speaker 4: in this crash, and he said, because I have common sense,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately a lot of people don't. Is this dangerous
Speaker 4: talk before we hear from the NTSB, when we're speculating
Speaker 4: on a level like this.
Speaker 5: Well, Joe, what I'm going to do is what I
Speaker 5: think most Americans are going to do. Let's wait till
Speaker 5: the experts. Let's wait till the professionals. Let's wait till
Speaker 5: the career people at NTSB who've done many, many, many
Speaker 5: of these investigations.
Speaker 3: The President's not waiting though. That's why I asked the answer. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: and I don't want.
Speaker 4: Opinion a corner, but the President of the United States
Speaker 4: seemed to do something a little different today, and that's
Speaker 4: why your experience is important to us. We'd love to
Speaker 4: talk to you once we do learn more about this from.
Speaker 3: The NTSB later today.
Speaker 4: Raylan is the former US Secretar Area Transportation, and I
Speaker 4: appreciate your caution in talking with us Today's secretary, and
Speaker 4: of course thinking of the families here. We're thinking as
Speaker 4: well of some three hundred rescue workers who have been
Speaker 4: in freezing cold water in a harrowing and terrifying experience
Speaker 4: for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in incredibly difficult conditions. As we've mentioned that work
Speaker 2: is still underway. As of the latest update, only twenty
Speaker 2: eight bodies have been recovered. It's believed sixty seven people,
Speaker 2: all of the individuals who are on board these two aircraft,
Speaker 2: are not believed to have survived this crash, and I
Speaker 2: would just reiterate we do not definitively know what caused
Speaker 2: this crash, despite suggestions that were made by the President
Speaker 2: of the United States earlier. We are awaiting a briefing
Speaker 2: from the NTSB. It's coming up a two forty five
Speaker 2: Eastern time.
Speaker 4: We'll bring that to you here on Bloomberg. We'll assemble
Speaker 4: our panel next as well.
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Speaker 4: It is the Thursday edition, and we start with tragic
Speaker 4: news here, of course, a tragedy that's hitting a lot
Speaker 4: of families here across the Washington region. American Eagle flight
Speaker 4: fifty three forty two in a mid air collision with
Speaker 4: a military black Hawk helicopter. And of course this is
Speaker 4: now a situation where a rescue operation has become a
Speaker 4: recovery operation, having been staged at the airport since early
Speaker 4: this morning DCA National Airport. Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall joins us
Speaker 4: right now with the latest that she's hearing from authorities
Speaker 4: on the ground.
Speaker 3: Tyler, what can you tell us?
Speaker 6: Yeah, hey, Joe, we know that twenty seven bodies have
Speaker 6: been recovered from the Potomac River. We know that sixty
Speaker 6: four victims were on that American Airlines flight three. We're
Speaker 6: on the Blackhawk helicopter when the pair collided. A lot
Speaker 6: of questions still remain. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy came out
Speaker 6: and said that all of this could have been preventable.
Speaker 6: We also heard from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called
Speaker 6: this a quote mistake, suggesting that it might have been
Speaker 6: an elevation issue at play here. We're still waiting though
Speaker 6: on additional questions, considering authorities say that both of those
Speaker 6: aircraft were on routine of flight paths. The NTSB is
Speaker 6: expected to brief shortly and will be efforting some additional
Speaker 6: answers there.
Speaker 3: Right, Tyler, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: We'll get back with Tyler throughout the day as she
Speaker 4: learns more from the airport. And we want to bring
Speaker 4: in the voice of an expert here before we assembled
Speaker 4: our panel. Jeff Wise is where this aviation journalist, host
Speaker 4: of the Finding MH three to seventy podcast, has been
Speaker 4: covering the commercial airline sector and aviation at large for years,
Speaker 4: and Jeff, I want to welcome you to Bloomberg. We
Speaker 4: heard a doozy of a news conference with the President
Speaker 4: a short time ago. He blamed the Biden administration, specific
Speaker 4: Pete Bodhaj edge around the Transportation Department and more broadly
Speaker 4: DEI policy for resulting in a crash that appears to
Speaker 4: if you also listen to what else you said, appears
Speaker 4: to likely have not been the faults of the air
Speaker 4: traffic controller or any of the other regulators and FAA
Speaker 4: operators who were involved. You've got your own take on
Speaker 4: this in a column today that I want to ask
Speaker 4: you about, Jeff, But what did you make of what
Speaker 4: the president said?
Speaker 3: Is any of that true or provable?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, listen, safety is a tedious, meticulous, careful,
Speaker 7: not exciting game.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: You have to cross your t's and dot your eyes,
Speaker 7: and you know, it's not exciting, it's not entertaining, it's
Speaker 7: not you know, making a big show. And so if
Speaker 7: you come in and you're going to just sort of
Speaker 7: make wild accusations and connect unconnected thoughts and everything, that's
Speaker 7: how safety works.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: On the other hand, I will say this, the President
Speaker 7: said that he thought the military helicopter was to blame him,
Speaker 7: and which is, you know, in itself, kind of crazy
Speaker 7: protocol wise. But anyway, it does seem like in my
Speaker 7: judgment that it was the helicopter that was in the
Speaker 7: wrong place at the wrong time. So it will be
Speaker 7: interesting to see what the NTSP has to say about this.
Speaker 7: It is sort of in contrast with what if his
Speaker 7: own Transportation secretary, believe had to say that everyone was
Speaker 7: on the correct path.
Speaker 4: It is pretty wild to step in front of the
Speaker 4: NTSB and make statements like that. I think to your point, Jeff,
Speaker 4: we can also let our viewers and listeners know that
Speaker 4: the NTSB has in fact, just now scheduled in news
Speaker 4: briefing that will take place two hours from now two
Speaker 4: forty five pm East coast time. You're writing, Jeff, safe
Speaker 4: operation is particularly a challenge at Reagan, of course, National Airport.
Speaker 4: We're talking about, you say, a small airport very close
Speaker 4: to the Washington City Center, whose users include a large
Speaker 4: number of people with considerable power over the.
Speaker 3: Aviation system itself.
Speaker 4: Is this a congestion story that we're talking about because
Speaker 4: you know people are reaching and you're writing about it too.
Speaker 4: The roots that were added last year, I believe five
Speaker 4: of them at the behest of lawmakers who wanted more
Speaker 4: long range routes coming out of DCA. This has been
Speaker 4: an argument going back years. Remember John McCain talking about this,
Speaker 4: trying to get back to Arizona. Is it smart to
Speaker 4: be pointing people in that direction right now? If this,
Speaker 4: in fact was the fault of the military helicopter.
Speaker 7: Well it gets down to overworked air traffic controllers. And
Speaker 7: if the FAA is saying, look, this is a small airport.
Speaker 7: We can only carry so much traffic.
Speaker 3: You're overloading us.
Speaker 7: There is danger, and then those dangers bear fruit. I
Speaker 7: don't think those things are unconnected. And you have a
Speaker 7: kind of tragedy of the commons dynamic going where if
Speaker 7: lawmakers can say, oh, I want this extra route, even
Speaker 7: though you're overloaded, even though you don't think you can
Speaker 7: carry this much traffic safely, I want you to add
Speaker 7: another route because I want to get home. It's for
Speaker 7: my own sake. And that's just not a safe dynamic.
Speaker 4: You point out the flight that crashed was a route
Speaker 4: added last year. Is I mentioned this is one of
Speaker 4: the couple that were out of as a result. You
Speaker 4: write of pressure from Kansas Senator Jerry Moran, Republicans spoke
Speaker 4: this morning at the news conference.
Speaker 3: I know that flight.
Speaker 4: I've flown it many times myself, he said. I lobbied
Speaker 4: American Airlines to begin having a direct, NonStop flight service
Speaker 4: to DCA.
Speaker 3: So here we are.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump seems to think that this is basically something
Speaker 4: that the FAA needs to sort out.
Speaker 3: After you heard Jerry Moran, what did you think?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think this is really a bad
Speaker 7: look for him. You know, I think as a legislator.
Speaker 7: I'm sure he's proud that he was able to, you know,
Speaker 7: tweak the powers the leavers of government to get what
Speaker 7: he wanted for himself and his constituencies. He might want
Speaker 7: to fly to DC as well as him But look,
Speaker 7: this is he lobbied for the addition of a flight
Speaker 7: over the objection of the FAA, which wound up getting
Speaker 7: into a fatal accident. So he I hope he has
Speaker 7: like some thought that he might. I hope he second
Speaker 7: guesses his own logic, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You invoke the saying that I can't use on the
Speaker 4: air f around and find out fool around. Talk about
Speaker 4: Donald Trump's move. Sure we can do that, Donald Trump's
Speaker 4: moved to eliminate the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. The fact
Speaker 4: that the FAA administrator quit at the behest of Elon
Speaker 4: Musk on the twentieth of January. You say, as the
Speaker 4: saying goes, this crash puts us unambiguously in the find
Speaker 4: out stage of the process. Jeff, they're still pulling bodies,
Speaker 4: They're still looking for bodies in the Potomac River.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 7: This is that we are bearing the process of ignoring safety,
Speaker 7: of undermining safety, of deprioritizing safety is bearing fruit in
Speaker 7: the form of dead bodies being pulled out of the river.
Speaker 7: Safety is boring. It's not interesting, it's not exciting. And
Speaker 7: if you do it properly, what you get is nothing.
Speaker 7: Nothing happens, It's invisible. And so if you're smart and
Speaker 7: you're sensible, and you understand cause and effect, and you
Speaker 7: want to create a meticulous system to prevent this kind
Speaker 7: of thing happening, which was successful for where is it now?
Speaker 7: Sixteen years? And now it has broken down. And you know,
Speaker 7: they say, if you see a cockroach, it doesn't mean
Speaker 7: you have a cockroach, it means you have a thousand cockroaches.
Speaker 7: And this accident should be telling us something. And if
Speaker 7: we don't want to pull more bodies out of more
Speaker 7: crash sites, we should think carefully about cause and effect
Speaker 7: and less about entertainment and scoring political points with completely
Speaker 7: unrelated dogma and really put this in the hands of
Speaker 7: grown ups.
Speaker 3: Rankly, I'm glad you could come on with us today.
Speaker 3: Jeff Wise, aviation expert. Clearly.
Speaker 4: He's also a contributing author to New York Magazine, Popular
Speaker 4: Mechanics Magazine. Thanks for bringing your expertise to us, Jeff,
Speaker 4: as we assemble our panel, Rick Davis and Genie Shanzino
Speaker 4: are with us here on a difficult day in Washington,
Speaker 4: of course, both Bloomberg Politics contributors. Rick is our Republican
Speaker 4: strategist partner at Stone Court Capital, and Genie is our
Speaker 4: Democratic analyst and senior Democracy fellow with the Center for
Speaker 4: the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Rick, I'll start
Speaker 4: with you today, and I'm curious your thoughts on everything
Speaker 4: that we're talking about. I didn't want to do a
Speaker 4: panel on this. This was not supposed to be a
Speaker 4: political story. Donald Trump made it one today, for better
Speaker 4: or worse, and he's blaming largely DEI. He also put
Speaker 4: the names Joe Biden, Pete Boudage, Edge, and Barack Obama
Speaker 4: on this.
Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of anything like this?
Speaker 8: Well, first, Joe, I would say, our thoughts and prayers
Speaker 8: are with the families of the victims of this horrific accident.
Speaker 8: Thank you, and I hope that the healing can begin
Speaker 8: even after a press conference that you know, did anything
Speaker 8: but start that process. So I do think that you
Speaker 8: have to expect this with the president who wants to
Speaker 8: lay blame. He's a quick draw when it comes to
Speaker 8: doing that, and partly because he doesn't want it to
Speaker 8: land on his desk, right. I mean, we had an
Speaker 8: entire administration, you know, in his first term where you know,
Speaker 8: he wasn't prepared to take responsibility for acts of his cabinet.
Speaker 8: And that's just who he is, right, That's the guy
Speaker 8: we elected president of United States, and so it shouldn't
Speaker 8: be a surprise that this is his mo But I
Speaker 8: would say the flashing red signal politically on this is
Speaker 8: he is the least popular president at the start of
Speaker 8: a term since nineteen fifty three. That's not a attribute
Speaker 8: that is easy to overcome.
Speaker 5: So if he is.
Speaker 8: Thinking about wanting to sustain his power and office as
Speaker 8: a lame duck on election day, you would think that
Speaker 8: he would think through opportunities like this to unify the
Speaker 8: nation and to focus their attention on things that can
Speaker 8: actually keep this from happening again. I mean, no question,
Speaker 8: we need to evaluate our air traffic control system to
Speaker 8: ensure that we're using the best and most capable technology
Speaker 8: that the market has to all and that the people
Speaker 8: who we have are the best trained and best equipped
Speaker 8: to do the job to ensure future safety. That would
Speaker 8: have been a perfectly acceptable approach for the president to
Speaker 8: take today and no more.
Speaker 4: I'm really glad that you guys are both on today
Speaker 4: because this is pretty sensitive stuff.
Speaker 3: Genie. I don't know where you want to go here.
Speaker 4: I should point out by the way Donald Trump did
Speaker 4: make news in that news conference. There was a headline
Speaker 4: Acting Commission to the FAA, Chris Rushlow joining hands here
Speaker 4: with Sean Duffy and transportation secretaries but on the job
Speaker 4: for something like forty eight hours. I mean, this is
Speaker 4: really tough stuff, Genie. But when you consider the human element,
Speaker 4: and I appreciate Rick taking time to consider the families
Speaker 4: who are gathered waiting for horrible news right now.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, we had to bleep this.
Speaker 4: He used to swear to describe Pete boodhaj Edge, essentially
Speaker 4: saying that he thought the workforce was too white. Pete
Speaker 4: Heeksas says the.
Speaker 3: Era of DEI is gone. Jd Vance echoing that.
Speaker 4: Or when somebody asked Donald Trump, how can you come
Speaker 4: to the conclusion that diversity had something to do with
Speaker 4: this fatal plane crash, he said, because I have common sense, okay,
Speaker 4: And unfortunately a lot of people don't.
Speaker 3: How are we doing so far?
Speaker 9: Genie, you summarized it very well, Joe, And of course
Speaker 9: we feel horrible for these families, as Rick said, and
Speaker 9: this should not be a political moment. And that's what's
Speaker 9: so shocking in one sense and not so shocking if
Speaker 9: you've been following Donald Trump and the other that a
Speaker 9: few miles down the road from where they are pulling
Speaker 9: bodies still out of the Potomac River, these first responders
Speaker 9: who are been doing yeomen's work down there, and just
Speaker 9: the horror of that. He stepped to the stepped up
Speaker 9: to the microphone, and I have to say, Joe, for
Speaker 9: a moment, I said, he is being unifying. He asked
Speaker 9: for a moment of silence. He said, we all share
Speaker 9: in the grief, and that's certainly all true. And then,
Speaker 9: as you mentioned, he pivoted to politics, because if there's
Speaker 9: one thing we know about Donald Trump, the buck does
Speaker 9: not stop with him. The blame starts with him, and
Speaker 9: he wanted to blame everybody else, and that's what we're
Speaker 9: in for. And when Peter Alexander of NBC asked him
Speaker 9: the question about why this had been on the why
Speaker 9: this has been the policy since he was president. He
Speaker 9: balked at that, But let me give you one more
Speaker 9: to Jeff's long list. Sean Duffy in for forty eight hours,
Speaker 9: maybe twenty four. The first thing he did as Department
Speaker 9: of Transportation secretary had nothing to do with safety. Look
Speaker 9: up his first press release. It is rescinding Woke Deea
Speaker 9: policies that advanced Donald Trump's economic agenda. If there is
Speaker 9: truly a problem with hiring practices that are impacting safety,
Speaker 9: then why isn't the Transportation secretary talking about that first
Speaker 9: and foremost? But they're not. And so this is part
Speaker 9: and parcel of what we signed up for. Certainly what
Speaker 9: we're getting at this point.
Speaker 4: Boy, the lines that we heard from everyone in the
Speaker 4: briefing room say it all. Rick, Donald Trump said, I
Speaker 4: put safety first, Obama Biden and the Democrats put policy first.
Speaker 4: Will this actually change policy in Washington?
Speaker 8: Yeah, not totally clear what that means, because policy in
Speaker 8: regard to air travel is about safety, and so I think,
Speaker 8: you know, you'd have to drill down on that a
Speaker 8: little bit more to understand what the differences are. And look,
Speaker 8: I mean, we have as a nation an incredibly good
Speaker 8: safety record, right It's not like the entire system has
Speaker 8: been broken. But we have seen in the news over
Speaker 8: and over and over again, close call here, close call there.
Speaker 8: And so the reality of it is is, you know,
Speaker 8: it's said earlier on the program, if you see one roach,
Speaker 8: there are a thousand. Is this the one roach? And
Speaker 8: so I would think a really great endeavor is to
Speaker 8: not think about how we got here, but to think
Speaker 8: about the future and focus on a really significant effort
Speaker 8: on the part of the Department of Transportation and other
Speaker 8: agencies that are involved to ensure that we have the
Speaker 8: most up to date, technologically advanced smart system of air travel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and keeping in mind, of course, the families and
Speaker 4: as well as Genie points out, the rescuers who are
Speaker 4: still operating in freezing cold and dark water in the
Speaker 4: Potomac River, not very far from where I am sitting
Speaker 4: right now. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast.
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