U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth spoke Friday on several recent developments concerning the Trump administration, including President Trump’s plan to accept a Boeing jet from Qatar and recent moves on aviation and veterans programs.
The royal family of Qatar offered to give a jet to Trump, which he would use as the new Air Force One and then take with him once his term ends. Trump said he would put the jet at his future presidential library and it would not be for personal use.
Duckworth was not a fan of the idea.
“I think it’s blatantly and historically corrupt,” Duckworth said on The 21st Show. “It is a bribe of the president of the United States, and especially coming from a nation that is known to host terrorist organizations like Hamas, it is not acceptable.”
Several Democrats have raised issues with the gift, raising ethical concerns as laid out in the Constitution. Trump said that the Defense Department would accept the gift, as to not break those rules. Duckworth said her other problem with the gift is that it poses a security risk and financial concerns.
“I say it’s going to actually stick the taxpayers with even more money, we’ve already spent the money on the two new Air Force Ones that are under construction, but this so-called gift is going to require us to spend upwards of $1 billion to $1.7 billion,” she said. “To make sure this aircraft is up to the requirements to be Air Force One, so it’s going to have to be stripped down to the bones of the aircraft essentially.”
Duckworth said the government would have to ensure the aircraft was free of any listening or data-gathering devices and then hardened to the defense required of Air Force One. Trump wants to accept the gift because he has expressed frustration at the other two jets not being ready, which he arranged in his first term.
Aviation safety
One of Duckworth’s roles in the Senate is as chair of the subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operation and Innovation.
Duckworth said that many air traffic control towers across the country are operating with decades-old equipment and the Federal Aviation Administration — which lies in the jurisdiction of her subcommittee — requires funding for updates.
“The FAA is short personnel, and they are short air traffic controllers, and they are operating on equipment that is decades old, in some of our air traffic control towers [that] were put into place in the 1950s and 1960s,” she said. “Last year, in a bipartisan way, I was able to work with Sen. Moran of Kansas and we passed FAA reauthorization.”
Duckworth said that reauthorization put money towards equipment upgrades and training more staff to operate in airports by sixfold. Duckworth said the money is being held by the Trump administration, one of its many cuts to grants and funding across the government.
“They’ve been holding and withholding federal dollars that were basically appropriated by Congress last year, and they’ve been putting a hold on them and we need to make sure that those funds get released so that we can upgrade and modernize our air traffic control system,” she said.
Duckworth cited the January incident where a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with a passenger jet mid-air and killed all involved, as evidence of the Trump administration’s lack of attention to issues surrounding their mass firings.
“This is the same administration that even after that tragedy they still fired hundreds of FAA workers…whose main mission is air safety," Duckworth said.
Veterans Affairs
Another move by the administration that concerns Duckworth is a plan to cut over 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs. She said Republicans aren’t prioritizing veterans like they deserve and instead prioritizing another group.
“They would rather veterans go without their healthcare and their benefits, than to make sure that the ultra rich in this country pay their fair share,” said Duckworth, a veteran herself. “Frankly, the VA can’t afford to cut 80,000 jobs.”
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins has been adamant that staff cuts will not affect veterans' health care. At a recent hearing, he accused Democrats of fearmongering.
Duckworth said the reason the VA saw an increase in jobs in recent years was because of the PACT Act. Duckworth said that added upwards of two million veterans to the registry.
“Which allowed veterans who were exposed to toxic substances from their service, whether it was the burn pits in Iraq or Camp Lejeune tainted water, are able to get the benefit they earned, and we owe them as the American people," she said.
Duckworth said one of the other cuts she has seen is workers being taken away from a VA hotline, which served the caregivers of veterans.
