Secretary Markwayne Mullin gives update on FAA ground stop

Loved ones, as I said, we're going to get you on the ground, and we're doing it in a safe manner. To say that we can rule out anything, that's not what we do at this point. The first thing we want to do is make sure everybody is safe and we restore operations. Yes. Mr. Secretary, can you talk about the specific system that is being affected right now? And we have seen some planes land at specific airports. Is that going to be the case at all airports? Any flights in the air will be allowed to land? The flights that are currently in the air, we have a ground stoppage. We still got to get the flights. Right. And so we're going to be dealing with those case by case. Please. I think you said specific. It's a telecommunication outage. I'm not going to get ahead of FAA. That's their lane to talk about. We were wanting to assure all the American people this isn't a a safety to the American people or or another 9-11. I think that's what a lot of people are trying to make the comparison to. And that's not the case. And in briefing the President, what kind of We're throwing, everyone that has a stake in this, everybody's involved right now. So this is unprecedented when you see something like this and we're going to continue to throw the assets we need at it to make sure that once, not to repeat myself, but that we get the flights down and then we get the normal operations back up. Several of us that was involved in, yes, back here, back here, blue tie, sorry. So is it currently the communications is down as we speak right now? Yes. And then secondly- There is, we are able to communicate. At certain levels, but it's overwhelmed some of the systems we have. Once again, Sean Duffy, Secretary Duffy, is on this. He was on the phone earlier with the president and several of us. And they're doing a phenomenal job in a crisis mode. Is it days or weeks? That's too early to tell. That's too early to tell. Mr. Secretary, there are reports that this may last about seven hours right now. And the pilots are telling these people, is that the time frame you're looking for? We have not discussed. Any time frame for you guys. I'll just think about this as a whole. If I have a loved one at the airport, it's just to get everybody started back up in the ground and the flights going again. It's going to take some time. And so this isn't going to just be be resolved and turned around within the hour. This is this is going to take take some time. But once again, everybody is safe. The flights are accounted for. And there's no, there should be no fear to the public at all in this one. Did you explain, just the president has been briefed, you've talked to him? Yes. Well, there was, I wasn't the only person in the room, obviously. And then there are thoughts that, you know, this could be an AI-related error or issue. We call it SI. You know, you just can't rule out anything at this point. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're going through that process, and we're going to find out what happened. And when we do, we'll take the appropriate actions to make sure it doesn't happen again. While you're investigating, are there any extra precautions that are going on for the president to keep him safe while you're still investigating? Well, there's no fear to the public. I want to make sure we say this again. There's no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones. This isn't another 9-11. I just can't repeat that enough. People are making that assumption because that's the last time we had a nationwide ground stoppage. This is a telecommunication outage. This is much different. And just following up on Caitlin's question, there are reports that the FAA was rolling out a new AI traffic control system today. Has there been any link between that? We're looking at that. That word That's part of something that obviously through CISA at DHS, we're taking a look. We're working with our counterparts throughout all agencies. Mr. Secretary, are there planes in the air that FAA is unable to communicate with right now? No, no. It's just at a different level. The clarity is my understanding. So I'm not trying to get ahead of myself on this one. My understanding is that we can still communicate. It's just that it's at different levels and the clarity that we can get to. But there's redundancy in most communications. As you can see, there's still planes landing, and so there's still communications going on. We, at an abundant of caution, is the reason why we decided to ground everything. Let me go here. Thank you, sir. This is a ground stop for the United States. Yes. Is this affecting other countries as well? Not that we're aware of. There's two areas that we know that are not affected. I don't think I'm at... And the ability to share those right now. But there's two areas inside the United States that are still able to communicate just fine. Mr. Secretary, I don't understand that. What does that mean? And can you describe who is helping in investigating the root cause of it as far as what agencies? We're, every agency that has an asset that is involved in this from the communications side, FAA, DOD, State Department, we're all working, Together, but that's what we do, right? And I don't want to say that this is a crisis, but it is because we're downing work. We had to do a nationwide ground stoppage. It's what the government works well at. That's what we're here for. And so we are well positioned and communicating very well. The president took a lead in this immediately and he gave us the assets and the communication to... To move forward in a fast way. That's what leaders do. And President Trump is the best at leading us. Yes. I haven't got you. Go ahead. You say this is not a 9-11 style event. But if it is a widespread telecommunications issue. It could in theory be a cyber attack. Related to some sort of terror. A version of terror. But the modern day cyber version. You can't. This isn't the same comparison to 9-11. That is. That's a road I won't go down, but people are making that assumption because it's a stoppage. Do we know what has caused it yet? No, we're going to go through it, but I'm not going to make assumptions. As I've said multiple times, it's very difficult to make assumptions. We want to always deal with facts, and we're going to deal with facts, and as we get them, we'll roll them out to you guys. All right? Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Are you Terry Duffy here at the White House, sir? All right, we are back here live in the studio. Jessica Dupnik joining me as you've been working the phones as well, trying to get to the bottom of what's happening here. Here's what we know if you're just joining us at 5, 10 p.m. We know there's a nationwide ground stoppage. Flights are coming into places. There is communication, but there's an ATC outage right now that they're dealing with, which is basically their communications system. We just heard from Mark Wayne Mullen, who is stressing that this is not another 9-11, people making that connection because that was the last time. Last, you know, widespread ground stoppage at this point. Now, interesting point that he made. He's saying we can't rule out anything when a reporter asked about AI and a connection there. So they're treading lightly in terms of what they're putting out to the public at this point and not linking or not. Not linking things that have happened this week. We talked about the Microsoft outage yesterday. So there's still a lot to unpack with us. Well, there's millions of people who are without email for an explanation that is still not worthy of note yet. People are sitting back going, I don't understand why that happened.