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The failures of President Joe Biden’s pick to be secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, continue to mount. Like the over-under pool for the number of people shot in Chicago on a given weekend, he has become a punchline, almost a characterization of what a secretary of Transportation should not be.
Buttigieg’s tenure did not get off to a good start. He took two months’ paternity leave when he and his husband adopted two children in 2021, drawing criticism from even former Vice President Mike Pence. Said the former VP at the Gridiron Dinner in March 2021, “when Pete’s two children were born, he took two months’ maternity leave whereupon thousands of travelers were stranded in airports, the air traffic system shut down, and airplanes nearly collided on our runways. Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression.”
When the railroads stopped running, and we nearly faced a rail strike that would have crippled the U.S. supply chain, Buttigieg sprang into action … by going on a vacation to Portugal.
GUTFELD: NO TRAVEL DELAY IS COMPLETE WITHOUT EXCUSES FROM MAYOR PETE
Buttigieg’s response to the February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, was another public relations nightmare. First former mayor Pete told a reporter that he wouldn’t answer questions about the disaster because he was on “personal time.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tours the site of the Feb. 3, Norfolk Southern train derailment, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, in East Palestine, Ohio. (Allie Vugrincic/The Vindicator via AP, Pool)
When he finally visited the site of the disaster, he was lambasted for dressing like Bob the Builder, except for the very expensive leather dress boots he wore in lieu of industrial work boots.
His performance has been so underwhelming that he was frozen out of the labor negotiations between West Coast dockworkers and the ports, pushing acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su into the position of lead mediator for the government.
Fast-forward to the end of June which saw thousands of flights delayed and canceled and hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded. Refusing to take any responsibility for the chaos, Buttigieg blamed Mother Nature, telling CBS that bad weather has been the main culprit.
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But it isn’t just the weather. The Federal Aviation Administration is facing major staffing shortages, something directly under Buttigieg’s purview. Not only is the U.S. facing a critical air traffic control staffing challenge, but the FAA also “lacks a plan to address them.” “The Transportation Department Office of Inspector General said the staffing issues pose risks to the continuity of air traffic operations,” according to Reuters, and that prediction has been realized.
Things are so bad that the CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby blasted the FAA, stating, “the FAA frankly failed us this weekend.” He said the FAA reduced arrival rates at Newark airport by 40% and departure rates by 75% and was “almost certainly a reflection of understaffing/lower experience at the FAA.”
Kirby then made the “unforgivable” mistake of taking the lead from Buttigieg and taking a private plane to Colorado, while thousands of his customers were stranded in airports across the country. Said Kirby in a forced apology, “taking a private jet was the wrong decision because it was insensitive to our customers who were waiting to get home. “I sincerely apologize to our customers and our team members who have been working around-the-clock for several days.”
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Buttigieg did not comment on Kirby’s travel via private jet, perhaps because Buttigieg himself is under investigation by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General for his excessive use of private jets on the taxpayers’ dime. Senator Eric Schmitt, R-MO, has even introduced a bill demanding that Buttigieg take commercial flights instead of private jets.
I have previously called for Buttigieg to be impeached, and I repeat that call today. He is a prime example of what happens when the Biden administration puts a person in a job because of who that person is, or how that person identifies, and not because of what he or she can accomplish.
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