Trump’s weird reaction to flight crisis proves he’s lost all interest in his job

For a man who tells Americans that their country has now entered a new “Golden Age”, President Donald Trump did literally nothing this weekend to shore up rapidly sinking public confidence about the safety of air travel in the United States. From the moment his government’s Federal Aviation Administration ordered only the third complete ground stop at all American airports in US history, paralysing the travel industry and causing untold disruption to millions of passengers, Trump absented himself from the public conversation. On Friday night, as the crisis escalated, the usually garrulous US leader made no effort to call any of the US television news networks to calm the public and assure them he had the problem in hand. He did not call any of his favoured reporters to urge the nation to remain patient. He failed to use his Truth Social account to offer any words of sympathy to affected families, many of them stranded at airports where they were receiving only paltry and disjointed information. Instead, at 5.52pm on Friday, right in the middle of the crisis, his social media account published an incongruous diatribe about the urgent need to “MAKE OUR ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY GREAT AGAIN!” – an effort to entice the film industry back to the United States after it “largely moved to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries”. Trump insisted “the actors, producers and all others involved want to come back home!”. That absolutely nobody was, at the time, able to come back home only served as the icing on the cake, but then irony has never been this president’s strong suit.Cancelled and delayed flights at Washington airport after a national ground stop hit all US flights on Friday (Photo: Reuters/Eric Lee) The President has appeared strangely detached since his humiliation in the midterm elections, responding to the brutal repudiation of his government by the American people with an extraordinarily tone-deaf rant about the construction of his extravagant White House ballroom. This seeming indifference continued as he left dealing with the fallout from collapse of the air traffic control system in the hands of his deputies. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (a former lumberjack and reality TV personality) and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin (a former professional mixed martial arts fighter) dutifully insisted that the boss was fully in command. “This is what President Trump does. He puts leaders in place and he asks them to lead,” Mullin told quizzical reporters at the White House on Friday night. “He’s the greatest president we’ve ever had. You’ve never had a builder and leader, like President Trump, lead this nation and have a vision and put the team together.” Sadly for the public – especially those watching from the nation’s shuttered airports – neither Duffy nor Mullin could explain precisely what technical issues had brought the air traffic control system to its knees. They contradicted one another and appeared more focused on showing deference to Trump and his new White House Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, than on providing American travellers with any confidence in the safety of air travel. By the time their appearance ended, Politico reasonably asked: “Are Trump Officials Living in an Alternate Reality?” On Saturday, Trump’s social media feed again avoided any mention of the aviation crisis. He slammed California Governor Gavin Newsom for the blanket commutation of all death sentences in the state and found time to scribe scores of messages – many illustrated with photographs – regarding his urgent need to renovate a golf course at a Washington DC public park, despite a court order halting the project. On Sunday morning, as America’s air travel network staggered back to life, Trump finally decided it was time to weigh in. “I am in the White House having meetings on many subjects,” he wrote. “Very exciting times for the USA. Great things are happening – We are the ‘hottest’ Country anywhere in the World!” That is, except for in the realm of airline travel. “Much of our current air control system is 50 years old – RIDICULOUS!” he complained, criticising the Biden administration for “making an old and broken system worse than when they began”. Citing Duffy’s extemporised call on Friday night for an additional $50bn in funding to replace the system, Trump sidestepped the fact that last year’s “Big, Beautiful” tax and spending legislation included $12.5bn that he requested for air traffic control upgrades. “We need Congress to give the money. FAST!” the President exclaimed, promising, “It will be the BEST SYSTEM anywhere in the World.” But his use of the future tense will leave many Americans fearful that the present system, which Duffy says will take years to overhaul, is putting lives at risk aboard every plane that flies above America. One indicator of how long upgrades will take came just ten days ago. Duffy, with a flourish, announced that floppy disks – computer storage technology dating back to the 1980s – will finally be removed from service at American air traffic control centres within the next two years. The weekend’s events underlined one of Trump’s greatest vulnerabilities, one that psychologists and historians will debate for decades to come. Trump does not like dealing with bad news, leaving that to his lackeys. Unfortunately for him, they lack the heft for the work they have been assigned. And any day now, it seems inevitable that the Federal Aviation Administration will be delivering more grim tidings about fresh air traffic control deficiencies for the President to ignore.