Sec. Duffy Exposes Schumer’s Surrender to The Radical Left

And good morning, everyone. We are entering our third hour, the 8 a.m. hour now, here on Mornings with Maria. I'm Maria Bartiromo. It is 8.04 on the East Coast. We have breaking news across the board this morning. We've been listening to President Trump, the president addressing the Israeli parliament this morning after the historic peace deal between Israel and Hamas. He is calling this a new golden age for Israel, the Middle East, and the world. All remaining 20 hostages have been released. We are watching the president continuing his speech, and we will bring you there soon. Meanwhile, we just heard from Scott Besant as a trade war and a soft war with China escalates. It is also day 13 of the government shutdown, and we are entering a new week of that shutdown. Airlines are grappling with delays and cancellations. Air traffic controllers are already facing nationwide staffing shortages and are now working through the shutdown without pay. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy clarifying more than 90 percent of those critical workers are showing up to work, but those who do not could be fired. Sources are telling me one of the reasons that the government is still shut down is because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want to join the No Kings rally that is expected next Saturday in Washington. Apparently, the No Kings rally organizers have threatened Schumer, if you do not keep government shut down, we will make you irrelevant. Joining me now is U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Secretary, thank you so much for being here. It has been a historic morning listening to President Trump in the midst of this government shutdown and the situation around China. What can you tell us? Well, first off, you're right. President Trump might have a government shutdown on his hands, but that doesn't stop him. I've been in the Oval with him several times over the course of the shutdown, and he continues to operate. And, you know, the American media seems to present President Trump one way, but if you actually listen to what he says, he is a peacetime president. He is the most peace-driving president that I think we've seen in a very long time in America. He talks about this is the eighth war he's stopped. He cares about the young men that are dying in Russia and Ukraine and also what's happening in the Middle East. And it hits his heart really hard. And it gives him great joy that he can bring peace to regions, and we're seeing that this morning play out in what is historic, this Middle East peace deal, again, bringing all sides in, really challenging negotiations. People haven't been able to do it in the past, but President Trump seems to have this unique knack of bringing people together, cutting deals, and both sides in the deal walking away thinking they got a fairly good deal, which is always positive if you want those peace deals to last. So well done on President Trump. And again, you and Scott Besson were talking about China, incredibly important that America realize the threat of China and how they can leverage, as you mentioned, their refining of critical minerals. That goes into everything that we use in electronics and cars and computers. And so, again, recognizing that, and Donald Trump not wringing his hands and thinking about what he needs to do, actually developing a strategy and figuring out how we're going to push back, not allow that to happen. And he has a great team around him, especially on the economic side, being led by Scott Besson. But really, at the center is Donald Trump. And of course, after the president's remarks, he will head to Egypt, where he will be joined by a total of more than 30 global leaders who will be there to attend President Trump's Gaza peace accord signing. So we will have more on that. But Secretary, layering on top of all of this news that we've been covering is this government shutdown. And I wonder if it's a coincidence that the Democrats want this government shutdown to create some chaos in the midst of this incredible peace plan that the president has led. You've got more than 10,000 delays already happening worldwide today in terms of air traffic control. More than 280 flights have been canceled, airlines warning passengers to prepare for changes to their travel plans until the shutdown is resolved. Secretary, you walked into a mess, and it has gotten worse now in the last three weeks. What is your message to passengers this morning? Well, so, first off, you know this, Maria, because you've reported on it. Your viewers know this. We are really tight on air traffic controllers. We're understaffed. We need another 2,000 to 3,000 controllers across our system. And so if you have a few controllers that call in sick, it will ricochet through the airspace, and we have delays, because we're not overstaffed. We can't lose, you know, 100 controllers in a day, otherwise it has significant impact. And so what we've seen is controllers incredibly frustrated by the shutdown. What Chuck Schumer is doing, looking out for illegal migrants, as opposed to looking out for air traffic controllers, they don't show up, and all of a sudden we have massive delays. My message to the controllers is they have to come to work. You got to show up. That's your job. You're going to get paid for your work. It depends when Chuck Schumer opens up the government, but you will get paid. But beyond that, when you have a delay or a cancellation, you got to look to the Democrats and wonder, why do they want to create chaos? Why do they want to create pain in my life, what, for political power? I think Americans are upset about that. From my perspective, when you travel, though, we will slow you down. We will cancel flights. We want to make sure that when you travel, you travel safely. And so if we don't have the controllers necessary to keep you safe, we slow it down. And that's what you see with those delays. But again, the No King's Protest, Maria, really frustrating. I mean, this is part of Antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question, who's funding it? But yeah, Democrats want to wait for a big rally of a No King's Protest, when the bottom line is, who's running the show in the Senate? Chuck Schumer is not running the show. The No King's protesters or organizers are running the show. Is AOC threatening a primary against Chuck Schumer? Is she running the show? But you need a strong leader in the Senate to take control and make decisions. And Chuck Schumer is blown in the breeze. He has no power, no authority, because he's giving it up to his primary opponent, potentially an AOC, or to the No King's Protest organizers, and it's shameful. And Secretary, we know that President Trump is going to use this as an opportunity to cut down government. He told us at the end of last week that the layoffs have begun. Russ Vought said that the lists are in place. Can you tell us what you're expecting in terms of your department, the Transportation Department, in terms of the scope of these layoffs that we are expecting? President Trump has been clear for the last several months. He says, you know, I want to keep the good employees. I want to keep the good people that serve in government. And I want to get rid of the bad ones. He didn't like, you know, the meat cleaver approach to the cuts to government, because with the meat cleaver approach, you can lose some really great public servants. So we're looking across the department at DOT. We're looking at NASA, as well. And you know, we're going to make the necessary cuts. Again, if there's people that we employ that we can get rid of and do the same job with less people, saving the government money, that's critically important. Also in the back of the president's mind, you know, Scott Besson was talking about, you know, debt to GDP coming down for the first time with the mess that was handed off to us. It has a five in front of it right now. You know, Donald Trump cares about—greatly cares about the debt. And if we can do it more cheaply—he brought this up before the cameras came into the Cabinet. If you can do it more cheaply, if you can let people go that aren't great employees, do it, because it's going to help us save money for—in the long run, in our debt to GDP. We've got to start bringing it down for our next generation. So that's at play. By the way, Maria, Democrats are going to go vacation in Napa this weekend to have a retreat as they try to inflict pain on the American people. They're going to go to Napa and drink organic wine? I mean, they can't be more out of touch with what's happening in this country. And they normally win these shutdowns, Maria. They normally win. But I think the American people are looking at the Democrats who are making demands, not doing a clean CR, and they're getting blamed for it. You talked about chaos really quick. Remember back when Barack Obama had the shutdowns in his tenure? I was in the Congress during that time frame. Remember the open-air monuments in Washington, D.C.? They put up fencing, so World War II vets or Vietnam vets couldn't actually walk up to the open-air monument. They wanted to inflict pain. If there was a trail for the National Forest, they would shut them down, give you a ticket, if you actually went and hiked on a park in America. They inflicted pain. Donald Trump right now is trying to say, you know, pay the troops, figure out how we deal with air traffic controllers. He's trying to reduce the pain on the American people, based on what Democrats are doing. Because Donald Trump and his administration, they care about the American people. They don't want to use them as a cudgel. They care about them, want to support them, where Democrats use them as power. Unbelievable stretch of events here, and the backdrop really is remarkable. Secretary, you mentioned NASA. I want to get there for a moment, because you are also the acting administrator of NASA, pushing space exploration forward, working to beat China back to the moon with the Artemis campaign. This is very important to me and to our audience, because we recognize that space is a national security issue. You recently attended the 76th International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia. Dozens of space agency leaders from around the world deepened their commitment to the Artemis Accords. And I'm speaking about the importance of this national security issue in my Fox Nation special, The Enemy Above, which is streaming right now. Secretary, walk us through why space is so important to national security. I think most people don't understand why it is so important. And I always say, very simply, it's because that's where our satellites are. And our adversaries could try to take down our satellites and turn the lights off. And America, walk us through the importance here of NASA and space, and why you are so aggressive on it. So, first, I appreciate your coverage, Maria. Actually talking about the importance of space and really put it into perspective, what you've done on your Fox Nation special. Thank you for that. We appreciate it. So, again, we've had this great history of space exploration. China now is increasing their efforts. They want to get to the moon, like we did 54 years ago. And so, we've been building a coalition of like-minded countries who believe that we should have a certain set of priorities in space. We should come in peace, and we should be transparent about what we're doing. And again, over 50 countries have joined us in that effort. The Chinese don't agree with that, Maria. They're pushing a militarization of space. And again, there are military assets in space. Everyone has them. But we think we should be peaceful there. And so, we're building a global coalition that agrees with us as opposed to China. But you're right. A lot of people are like, why do I need satellites? I got a phone that gives me GPS on my phone. Well, Maria, the GPS and the phone actually comes from the satellites, right? Everything is coming from satellites. It's a $600 billion economy. It's on its way to a trillion-dollar economy in the U.S. per year. And so, if you don't win in space, if you cede space to your enemy, you are going to cede your future. It used to be he who controls the seas controls the world. Now it's he who controls space controls the world. We want to make sure we don't cede it to China. So we're in a race to the moon. We haven't been back in 54 years. We have a lot of partners who are helping us. We're a little bit behind right now, Maria. And I've come in and I've said, you know what? We got to pick up the pace. We got to do better. We got to be better. We're not just paying you. We're paying you for results, American partners. And I feel very confident that in President Trump's term, we are going to get back to the moon. This time, we're going to stay. Maria, it's important that you stay because what you learn on the moon, we can set up a base. We're going to learn a ton from being there. But what we learn is going to help us to get to Mars and beyond. And so, and again, by the way, it was NASA that made the investments that got us into lower Earth orbit. And it was from there that the private sector came in behind us and have had this amazing business that we see in lower Earth orbit in space. The same thing is going to happen with the moon, we think. We get there first. We make the investments at NASA. And then you get the private sector that comes in behind us. But the moon is critical also for national security. I understand space and the satellites in space. But explain the moon, why you believe you can and the United States can beat China back to the moon. You say you want to start a base on the moon? Yeah, we do. So first off, we go back, we're going to go back at the first part of next year, four astronauts going out to the moon and around it and coming back. Right? That's the first time in 54 years we will have done that. That's Artemis 2. Artemis 3, a little over a year, year and a half after that, we're going back to the moon and going to land. At the south pole of the moon, you have ice. Ice is water. Ice is oxygen. Ice is life. So if we go to the south pole of the moon, we can set up a base. We want to put in fission power. And we think we can have long term stays on the south pole of the moon. And it's going to be remarkable because it's that kind of human experiment that you need that's going to give you a scientific advancement that's going to allow us to take the next step and get to Mars. Wow. And so, yeah. And by the way, there's a whole, the minerals that we can find on the moon and the impacts are going to have back on earth are remarkable. We're still learning what that could look like, but great resources on the moon that we don't have here on earth. Wow. That is an extraordinary. That is an extraordinary development as well, particularly in this fight for rare earth minerals. Secretary, this has been such an enlightening conversation. We hope that you'll come back on a day that we can have a longer period with you. Of course, there has been a massive news flow this morning. Secretary, thank you very much for being here. Thanks, Maria.