President Donald Trump stayed out of public view during a nationwide flight ground stop that grounded or delayed around 10,000 flights, leaving his homeland security and transportation secretaries to explain the crisis.
The disruption lasted almost five hours on Friday evening and exposed the fragility of the country’s air traffic system. While Markwayne Mullin and Sean Duffy addressed reporters, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social about tax incentives to bring film production back to the United States.
“MAKE OUR ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote.
Mr Mullin, the homeland security secretary, insisted the president was fully engaged despite not appearing before cameras.
“This is what President Trump does,” he said. “He puts leaders in place, and he allows them to lead.”
Mr Mullin added that Mr Trump had allowed him and Mr Duffy to explain what had happened. The two officials, however, appeared at times to offer conflicting accounts of the breakdown as they tried to explain the nationwide disruption.
Mr Mullin said the failure had occurred after new technology upgrades overwhelmed an older system, catching officials at the Transportation Department off guard. Department officials had not yet determined what had overloaded the system or caused the disruption to spread.
Mr Duffy subsequently said it was old equipment, rather than new technology, that had failed. On Saturday, he said a routine router replacement in a remote area had triggered the outages, although officials could not yet say whether the cause was a faulty part or an error by a contractor.
“We’re deeply grateful for Secretary Mullin and his team’s partnership as we worked through this challenging time,” Mr Duffy said in a statement.
When asked about Mr Trump’s whereabouts, Mr Duffy said the president had been involved privately.
“Well, the two of us have talked to him,” he said. “He’s in. I’ve talked to him on the phone. I’ve talked to him in the Oval. So has Markwayne.”
The White House referred questions about the president’s response to comments from Mr Duffy and Mr Mullin. Stephen Miller, the newly installed chief of staff, and Steven Cheung, the communications director, watched from the side as the agency leaders spoke to the media.
Mr Duffy blamed Congress for failing to provide funding for updated Federal Aviation Administration technology and called for $50 billion to rebuild the network.
“I want $50 billion,” he said. “President Trump is a builder. He’s going to build this network and deliver for the American people.”
Democrats have pledged to investigate the administration’s handling of the shutdown. They have also said the administration prioritised deportations over air safety, while congressional aides said lawmakers had privately questioned how efficiently the FAA had spent money already allocated to it.
By Saturday morning, Mr Trump had still not directly commented on the ground stop. Instead, he attacked California governor Gavin Newsom over his decision to commute the death sentences of more than 500 inmates, taken more than a week earlier.
The president had maintained a lower public profile since Democrats swept the midterm elections, after holding rallies across the country and speaking publicly almost every night before the vote.
Former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a close ally of Mr Trump, criticised his silence during the aviation crisis. She said he had devoted considerable attention to construction projects including repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but had not issued a direct statement as the flight system faltered.
Mr Trump finally acknowledged the matter on Saturday afternoon, but only by reposting a quotation from Republican senator John Kennedy of Louisiana: “The FAA Funding should be a stand alone Bill — We should get Democrat support for that!”
With the immediate crisis largely over, although cancellations and disruption continued, Mr Trump returned to posting about tax credits for the film industry.
