Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Talks Newark Airport Delays

Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, says job cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency have hurt the Federal Aviation Administration. He says the Trump administration and Department of Transportation are causing chaos at airports across the country. Schumer spoke to Bloomberg's David Gura and Julie Fine. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
News leader Schumer. We heard from the Transportation Secretary in
argument the airspace is safe. As he put it, I
wonder if you would tell Americans right now that they
are in fact safe to fly.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Look, I'm not going to dispute the FAA when they
say that, but you can't be too careful and things
are safe until they're not safe, as we learned at DCA.
And so the bottom line is there are lots of
questions about how they have handled themselves. First, the firing
of so many employees under Doge has weakened the FAA. Second,

(00:41):
a good number of top level people who are concerned
with air safety in flight flight safety have left out
of exasperation because they think the people who have been
put in charge don't know what they're doing. And Third,
the FAA increased bonuses to attract more where people in
the towers and keep them in the towers for thirteen

(01:04):
cities but not Philadelphia, New York or Washington. That seems
to me to be ridiculous. So there are so many
questions that have not been answered yet. And you know,
one word that describes this administration is chaos. There's no
place worse to have chaos, very few places than an airport.
Yet that's what's happening at Newark, and it's spreading around

(01:26):
the country.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Senator Schumer, do you believe then that DOGE is to
blame and these cuts are to blame for what you
are seeing in the air right now?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
All the reports we get from people who work there
is the cuts have hurt, and there's no rhyme or
reason to them. They're just cutting for cutting's sake, and
it's very bad, and we talk to people who are
in the towers.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I want to pivot here to ask you about the
budget process, which of course is ongoing and being driven
here by Republicans. They talk about their being waste, fraud,
and abuse in Medicaid to the tune of six hundred
billion dollars. Do you think that is findable in that way?
And how do you sort of see Democrats responding to
Republicans pushing this forward? No?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, we ask them give us specific examples of waste
when they're cutting Medicaid, and they fail to come up
with them, or have one anecdotal thing that can't even
be proven. We know that they want to slash Medicaid,
not because of waste, but for one reason, and that
is to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in
this country. You know, God blessed the people who made

(02:34):
a lot of money, but they don't need a tax break,
certainly when you're cutting Medicaid, which is going to cause
huge layoffs, decline in healthcare, and closure of hospitals and
nursing homes. I was on Staten Island, a Republican area,
a few weeks ago with the health leaders and they
estimate that there would be eighteen thousand people who would
lose their jobs under these cuts. That would send that

(02:54):
whole economy of Staten Island into a recession. So they
use excuses because they just want to slash the budget,
and they don't come up with anything specific, nor do
they come up with specific solutions out of end waste.
People show up Friday night at home after a hard
week of work and online as you're fired. Don't show

(03:15):
up at the office. These people have dedicated their lives
to helping people, and they're not even given an explanation
of why they're fired because those doesn't have one. They
just want to slash.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Now there are those in your own party though that
have said there.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Need to be changes when it comes to spending. Where
would you suggest cuts? Well, look, first, no one's against
cutting waste, but you've got to document it. You just
don't tell somebody they're part of waste without giving them
any explanation, any evidence. But there are obviously places that
can be cut throughout the budget, but you've got to

(03:51):
be careful. You've got to use a scalpel, not a chainsaw.
When Elon Musket's there smiling that he's using a chainsaw
to government, doesn't he realize he's hurting millions of people