longer.blue

Dean Blundell: The press conference from Bananaland…. First question: why was the Homeland Security Secretary running a briefing about an FAA equipment failure? Nobody knows. But there was Markwayne Mullin, who earlier in the day had reassured the country that this “isn’t another 9/11,” which is the kind of thing that makes people think about 9/11. Mullin opened by announcing that FEMA had activated its centres and that Duffy was there to give an update on FEMA. He meant the FAA. He said it twice. He told the country the public was “never at danger,” which is close to English. His own department’s press release has him ruling out an “SI attack,” which is not a thing. He said there was no cyberattack, and a little later that nothing was completely certain. Then a reporter asked the only question that mattered. If nobody was ever in danger, why did you shut down the entire country’s airspace for the better part of five hours? Mullin’s answer was that nobody was in danger because of the procedures they put in place. Later he called the fact that nobody died a miracle. So it was perfectly safe, and also a miracle that everyone lived. Pick one, Markwayne. Then came the part Duffy will be replaying in his head for a while. Mullin, standing right beside him, explained that Duffy and the FAA had been patching new equipment and new technology into the network and that “it was overwhelming the older system.” In plain English, the Homeland Security Secretary went on live television and said the Transportation Secretary’s own upgrades broke the sky. Cameras caught Duffy shaking his head. He then insisted none of the new equipment went down, that it was old switches and old routers choking on data. He first said the routers went down, then corrected himself mid-sentence to say they hadn’t. So that’s two cabinet secretaries at one podium with two different explanations. The head of the FAA, the one guy who might know, was not in the room.