Full Transcript for UPDATE: Ground Stop Lifted, Millions Stranded, Thousands Of Flights Cancelled; Where Is President Trump?

spoken about it. 00:06:00 Speaker 2: Where is President Trump? 00:06:01 Speaker 1: He hasn't. And we have his true social posts. He has posted twice since this happened. Didn't mention at all the chaos at the airports. And, Robes, I guess it makes sense. Why have your face attached to something that every American right now is pissed about? 00:06:18 Speaker 2: How about put your face in front of an unfolding crisis and be the leader we all need in that moment. And talk about how we're going to come together, how he's going to get Congress to come together. And to fund this badly needed overhauling of our communication system to keep people safe who fly each and every day. Yes, we need his face to say, I've got this. Don't worry. We're going to fix this. I don't care about the reflecting pool. I don't care about your Trump arch. I don't care about what the name of the Kennedy Center is. I don't care about– I'm just saying– I know what you're saying. This is where actually he could focus and be a leader and have that– yes, the thing he likes to say is him, right? I'm a builder. I can construct things. I know how to make things right and better and more beautiful and work better. more efficiently. This is kind of what he says is, that's what it seems like or appears to be what he wants his legacy to be, right? That he's a builder. And why not take this opportunity for something that is absolutely in need of fixing and get behind it and assure us that you've got this? 00:07:34 Speaker 1: That was in the midterms. Voters specifically said that thing. The president is focused on things that I'm not focused on. He's focused on things that aren't impacting my life. the energy he put into the reflecting pool, the time, the energy, as much as he talked about it, if that energy had been put into the air traffic communication system, babe. 00:07:55 Speaker 2: Not as sexy. You can't see it. It's just a. 00:07:59 Speaker 1: Ah, look at what I did versus. 00:08:01 Speaker 2: There's nothing to point to. There's no accompanying graphic or poster board that he could bring up to show what he did because it's kind of just... a computer system. So how do you show that you fixed that, right? And maybe it had to be fully broken in order for people to recognize that he could fix it. But again, there's an opportunity for him here to lead with something he claims he knows how to do better than anyone else. 00:08:28 Speaker 1: And his guys came out last night. Look, we've been Sean Duffy fans, transportation secretary. This was a rough night. But to let you know, a third of the flights that were supposed to be taking off yesterday were canceled in the United States. About 8,200 flights. That's about a third of all that were supposed to be taking off. Obviously, first things first, cyber attack. They came out and said, no, there's no indication of that. They don't believe it's that, but they wouldn't rule it out at the same time. That's the information we got. So when are

things going to be normal? How do you like that answer from Sean Duffy? It's going to take some time. 00:09:00 Speaker 2: Take some time. 00:09:00 Speaker 1: And we understand that. 00:09:01 Speaker 2: I believe we also heard it should be back to normal by the time we have the Thanksgiving rush. Look, he even pointed this out, and it's funny. He said, I believe, did he say he had a college student coming home next Friday? We have a college student coming home next Friday. Next Friday is when basically all the colleges let their students out for the Thanksgiving holiday. We know that the week of Thanksgiving, obviously, that Wednesday is a big day, Tuesday, Wednesday. But next Friday, that's a matter of days. I don't know, Annalise has a flight already, so do thousands of college students who will be coming home. Fingers crossed that things will be back to normal by then, and that's just basically all we've been promised. 00:09:45 Speaker 1: Annalise always finds a way to make it back to us. She does, doesn't she? Okay, so last night, instead, what time was their press conference, Robes? So this all went down around 3.36. And the way they put it, Robes, old equipment became overwhelmed with data, and the system started to fail. They say there's a radar and communications failure. They didn't see it necessarily system-wide, but they saw it in enough places that they were worried it might spread, and they just made the decision to put everybody on the ground. So everybody that was in the air got to continue to their destination ropes, the difference between this and 9-11. Every plane had to, no, you're not going to your destination. You're going to land at the first available spot. Correct. That is a difference from 9-11, but still the point remains. So last night, what time? I can't remember. What time was it? 00:10:33 Speaker 2: Was it around? I'm trying to think. It was close to around 8 o'clock last night. 00:10:38 Speaker 1: So it was a lot. So yeah. Wait, what? Yeah, it was later last night. So 336 is when this all went down. We got worried about it. 4, 430. Everybody certainly knew it at that point. So we're talking, we didn't hear something from the White House, and the FAA wasn't leading this thing either. We didn't hear anything officially coming out of the White House until 8 o'clock. 00:10:54 Speaker 2: Well, 8.30 p.m. Eastern time. Damn. That's the first time we, well, that was when Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's press conference was because he was able to announce in that press conference that they had lifted the ground stop. So I remember it definitely happened after the ground stop was lifted. So 8.30 p.m. was the first time we got something official from, from a member of President Trump's cabinet. 00:11:15 Speaker 1: All right, so Mark Wayne Mullen, the guy who replaced Kristi Noem as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy. They come out at the White House in the White House briefing room. I guess we need a press secretary, don't we? 00:11:30 Speaker 2: It would probably be helpful. 00:11:32 Speaker 1: But even on something like this, I don't want to hear from anybody but the president or the head of the, not even the head of the FAA. 00:11:37 Speaker 3: Don't care. 00:11:39 Speaker 1: This is impacting everybody and it's scary. Sometimes, even if you can't solve the problem, what do they call them sometimes? The consoler-in-chief or the healer-in-chief. Sometimes you just need to put your arm around everybody and say, hey, we're going to be all right, guys. 00:11:51 Speaker 2: And this is an opportunity to unite everyone because we're all in the same boat. We're all in that, we're all vulnerable in the same way. So this, again, this was an opportunity. 00:12:01 Speaker 1: This is something, no matter rich, poor, where you are, you can all relate to this thing. And we were all in the same pain. So Mark Wayne Mullen, he's out there in a suit and tie. Yeah. handling this yesterday and sean duffy's and looked like he's at a disaster zone jacket he looked. 00:12:16 Speaker 2: Like he was like dressed up to be a superhero i don't know he had a lot. 00:12:19 Speaker 1: Of patches on his it was a big patch. 00:12:21 Speaker 2: There was a couple patches and just i don't know his hair everything he just he looked like he was um an actor playing the transportation secretary um he always looked like what's what's the batman movie what's the name of the city that Gotham. Gotham, yes. He looked like he was the transportation secretary playing the part in Gotham. Like, that's what it looked like. 00:12:41 Speaker 1: Okay, we do all that just to set the scene for you. So these two are standing at the podium where you would normally see Carolyn Leavitt or Katie Zachariah, that one 14-minute time. Whatever, but they're standing there in the press room. Robes, I don't know how well this particular soundbite from Markway Mullen is going to age. 00:13:00 Speaker 3: This is what the leadership of President Trump looks like by the organization and the team he's put together. We're built to handle crisis like this. And that's exactly what we're doing. 00:13:15 Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? That make you feel better? 00:13:17 Speaker 2: No, because where is President Trump? 00:13:21 Speaker 1: Does he need to speak? Yes, is the answer. I can't believe I just almost said that. 00:13:25 Speaker 2: Absolutely. A thousand percent. Yes. And whoever, I mean, I know president Trump does what he wants to do, but man, someone needs to get in his ear and say, you are missing an opportunity. And if you don't take it and you don't speak and you don't unite and you don't lead and you don't reassure, it's going to come back to haunt you. 00:13:43 Speaker 1: He doesn't care. Babe, this is not, you can't, this is a loss. He can't take the loss. This administration, and we get it. I understand you can say it's just politics and how it

goes, but you can't take a loss. You can't be the face of a failure. You can't admit that maybe something you did was wrong. Or didn't do. Yes, was wrong. And Robes, and this is what the Duffy part last night. You and I, it was too much. He immediately got up there and started, give me money. Congress, give me money. I need money. There was a moment where we needed to be comforted, and he used it to make sense. Yes. I understand he had, Robes, what he thought would be the best audience. It felt icky when people are looking for their fucking luggage for you to be up there saying, see, this is why I need money. Give me my money. Give me my money. Instead of saying, hey, we're getting this under control and then we're going to have your bags and then we're going to try to do this and that. Robes, he spent most of his time up there being a politician. 00:14:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, and you got people in airports literally sobbing because they're not going to make their daughter's graduation. They're not going to make their daughter's wedding. I mean, there were people who were literally in tears, sobbing, realizing that they could not get to a life event that they expected to get to. And to have him up there saying, yeah, show me the money. Look, there's a time and a place for that. And maybe that was even as early as today or tomorrow. But you've got to explain and reassure and be a leader and not be a politician in that moment. 00:15:13 Speaker 1: And stay here, folks. We're going to explain a little further and let you hear more from that press conference and why it got actually combative in the room when a reporter asked what is obviously a legitimate question. Also, yes, folks, it is College Football Saturday followed by NFL Sunday. What's going to happen? 00:15:42 Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. The aftermath of a four-hour ground stop is real on this Saturday. Right now, there are still, what, 3,500 cancellations, 1,400 delays and counting, by the way. I've been watching FlightAware, and it just keeps ticking up, up, up. airports are packed. A lot of folks were forced to spend the night there. They don't have their luggage. So even if they could have gotten a hotel room or a car or a bus or some other mode of transportation to at least spend the night somewhere, they didn't have their stuff with them. I mean, it is mass chaos. And so, yes, we finally hear from a Trump administration cabinet member, the Department of Transportation Secretary and the Homeland Security Secretary. They're up there They're at the podium. They're answering questions. 00:16:35 Speaker 1: I didn't feel better after this. I don't know what would have made it. We were watching this with jaws dropped at times. And it was, Robes. It was the idea, the fact that... Do I have the sound? I'm trying to see if I have Sean Duffy's sound bite. Oh, yeah, I do have it, actually. This is a legitimate question. And you're going to have a difficult time maybe hearing the

question that comes out. But it's in there. But you have someone asking him. Like, you want this money? Republicans have had control of Congress. and the White House for two years. Knock yourself out. What else do you want? I thought it was a legitimate question, and he pulled off, Robes, what we know now is a, I guess a. 00:17:11 Speaker 2: A Trump trick? 00:17:12 Speaker 1: I was going to say the exact same thing. Take a listen to this. 00:17:16 Speaker 3: How many times does this have to happen before Congress. 00:17:19 Speaker 1: Gives the money to fix it? 00:17:21 Speaker 2: But the Trump administration has been in office for almost two years now, sir, so why hasn't this been a bigger priority for the president? Republicans control both chambers of Congress and still do. 00:17:30 Speaker 1: When... Let me see. 00:17:32 Speaker 3: So maybe you haven't covered the 100-plus press conferences that I've done on this issue that have been led by the president. 00:17:43 Speaker 1: But I know Fox has. Peter's carried the story. I know many of you have covered the story. 00:17:46 Speaker 2: About the president's ask and my ask to get the money. 00:17:50 Speaker 1: Right. And so I identify I identify because the Congress has to give it to us. 00:17:55 Speaker 2: Right. 00:17:56 Speaker 1: And you need it. You need it. Well, oftentimes it's a great point. 00:18:00 Speaker 3: Oftentimes you need a bipartisan vote. 00:18:04 Speaker 1: Go ahead, Robes. 00:18:05 Speaker 2: I mean, he tried to basically delegitimize her question by asking her what network she was from. And once she said NBC News. I mean, at least he didn't say what President Trump would have said next. You're fake news. You're horrible. 00:18:19 Speaker 1: That's a terrible question. 00:18:21 Speaker 2: But that was what he was doing. That is what President Trump does. If he doesn't like a question, instead of answering it, and that is what presidents have to do, answer tough questions, they turn it around on the reporter and imply or basically flat out say, you're not legit. Your question is coming from a place of partisanship and therefore... It's delegitimized. 00:18:43 Speaker 1: I don't like it. I can't answer it. Who are you with? 00:18:46 Speaker 2: You're not credible. 00:18:48 Speaker 1: Yes. Robes, is that not the most basic of questions? Why are you hooting and hollering about the money you can't get in a Congress you control? At what point are they just excuses? Robes, they got both houses and the president will sign anything. Get it done if this was an issue. The reflecting pool got more and more and more money for it. They found a way to get the construction crew to get a... Get his name onto the side of the Kennedy Center in 24 hours. You can get things done if you're committed to it, if it looks good for you. Robes, the other one he did, damn it, not the lockdown. You remember during the lockdown, the TSA agents, they weren't getting paid? 00:19:31 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:19:32 Speaker 1: Remember all that chaos in the airports? And both sides, they spent the whole time doing what? Just blank. No, it's their fault. No, it's their fault. Because it impacts every American. We were all pissed. Like, whose fault is this? Rose, this is another one of those things that nobody is going to want to raise their hand and say, oops, what we shouldn't. have done or how we should have gone about this. Robes, every American. And now this happens on a college football Saturday. 00:19:57 Speaker 2: Right before the holidays. Can you imagine, by the way, if this had happened one week later? I mean, with Thanksgiving travel the way it is and certainly record-setting travel. Jesus Christ. Look, it's terrible for it to happen at any point. But if it had been one week later, it would have been catastrophic. 00:20:15 Speaker 1: Okay, so Mr. Mark Wayne Mullen, Secretary Mullen, this was the doozy of his soundbite robes. And it didn't take, when this press conference started, it wasn't 60 seconds before he started talking that he was praising President Trump, complimenting President Trump, both of them robes, on a night that people are crying in an airport. Can't get home. Can't get to a hotel. Have to sleep here. 00:20:41 Speaker 2: President Trump not saying a damn word. 00:20:43 Speaker 1: But he sent these two out to praise him. Take a listen to Mark Wayne Mullen. This is a doozy. 00:20:48 Speaker 3: 3,000 flights in the air, we had a ground stoppage, and they were all able to land safely, even with the communication problems. And I just can't speak enough about President Trump's leadership. This is what President Trump does. He puts leaders in place, and he allows them to lead. They even ask, you know, why is the president not talking? It's because he's allowed Secretary Duffy and us to go out there and explain to you what took place. President Trump trusts his leadership, and that's why we really lean in towards his leadership. And when Secretary Duffy said he's the greatest president we've had. 00:21:29 Speaker 2: Oh, my God. He allows us to speak. That's why he's the greatest president ever. He trusts us to speak on his behalf. 00:21:37 Speaker 1: He said that. Duffy says he's the greatest president ever. That's what we're talking about as people are waiting three hours in tears trying to get a bag full. Off a belt in a city where. 00:21:50 Speaker 2: They don't know where they're going to spend the night. 00:21:52 Speaker 1: Yeah. And another thing, this happened later in the day to where you don't have enough time to adjust. Right. It's three, four o'clock. And we even saw some live shots from airports, from reporters after this went down. People didn't know this had happened. People in the airport still walking around. The boards haven't changed. They don't even know how much their lives have been impacted. 00:22:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, they just see delay. And so they think, okay, it's just delayed. It's going to be here. Let's go find

a fun little bar to sit at and order some food and wait it out. They had no idea that this was catastrophic. 00:22:21 Speaker 1: There are delays, that little trick, and it drives you crazy. And if you travel enough, you know it's coming. But the delay did come with another takeoff time. So a lot of people were thinking, yes, there's a delay. It's an hour and 10 minutes. But okay, isn't that an hour and 10? It was giving them updates about when their flight might take off, not realizing that flight wasn't taking off. 00:22:42 Speaker 2: So you actually had to have airline staff. There were reports. United gate agents were telling the people at their gate, go home. This flight ain't going anywhere. And they were trying to get people, if you live here, go back home. If you don't, you should probably try to see if you could get a hotel. 00:23:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so late in the day, Ro. They're still scrambling at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock. You're stuck in the airport. You got to stay there. What was it? Well, two things. You mentioned the car rentals. What was the train? Amtrak yesterday. Amtrak. Had a system shutdown. Apps and their website crashed. 00:23:20 Speaker 2: Too many people trying to get on a train, trying to get somewhere to where they're going. People are, you know, you get desperate. And yes, the car rental... Places, they're on a Friday already at an airport. You're lucky if there wasn't a ground stop to get a car if you hadn't already reserved one. And frankly, if you had reserved one, it's still not a guarantee. We've had that experience multiple times where I've had this reservation for three months. What do you mean when I show up to the counter and you tell me we don't have any cars? 00:23:49 Speaker 3: What? 00:23:50 Speaker 1: It's the full deal. Jerry Seinfeld episode. 00:23:53 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: You're good at taking the reservation. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: You're not good at keeping the reservation. 00:23:58 Speaker 1: Anybody can just take one. 00:24:01 Speaker 2: Oh, my God. That was the only thing that kept me going when that happened to us, actually. But that was just on a regular summer Saturday. Can you imagine? There were no rental cars. There were no bus tickets. There were no train tickets left. This was a disaster. 00:24:17 Speaker 1: Can you imagine how the rental center at Hartsfield Jackson looked? 00:24:20 Speaker 2: Oh, because we had been there plenty. 00:24:23 Speaker 1: On a slow day, it felt. 00:24:24 Speaker 2: People were describing having to spend $ 100 for an Uber to go five miles to try and get a hotel room. I mean, it was just awful. 00:24:32 Speaker 1: And the other thing, look, it's not the end of the world for most people, but it is a big part of culturally Saturdays from late August through December. Our college football Saturdays. 00:24:45 Speaker 2: College football. 00:24:46 Speaker 1: Erin Rose, there's some adjusting going on right now. 00:24:48 Speaker 2: Oh, my

goodness. Yes, they have. ESPN has a great, you pointed out, write-up of just how many college football teams were impacted. Number two, Utah. Number eight, Texas. Number nine, Tennessee. They were all at a standstill. And some games had to be switched, right? So the SEC had to announce Ole Miss versus Oklahoma is now going to move to Sunday. At 1 p.m. Eastern time, Auburn had to take a bus to Mississippi State, so the start time for their game was moved from noon Eastern time today to 4.15 p.m. Yes, Kansas and West Virginia, their start time was moved. I mean, I could just keep going. There are plenty. of sporting games, you should check your local listing if you were planning to watch whatever sporting event, whether it's today or tomorrow, because it's possible, and in some cases likely, that the start time, the kickoff time, has been adjusted. 00:25:46 Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind if they canceled the Arkansas game. 00:25:49 Speaker 2: Who are y'all playing? 00:25:50 Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It does. South Carolina. Oh. In Fayetteville. 00:25:55 Speaker 2: Oh, that's fun, though. 00:25:56 Speaker 1: Who does Georgia play? 00:25:57 Speaker 2: I didn't even look. 00:25:59 Speaker 1: I can't remember. 00:25:59 Speaker 2: That's terrible. 00:26:00 Speaker 1: How do I not know who Georgia plays? Hopefully the Gamecocks caught a flat or something on the way to Fayetteville. 00:26:06 Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. 00:26:07 Speaker 1: It's a rough year. 00:26:07 Speaker 2: That is hilarious. 00:26:08 Speaker 1: It's been a rough year. 00:26:09 Speaker 2: We are playing Mizzou. We're playing Missouri. 00:26:11 Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Could be a decent game. 00:26:12 Speaker 2: Sanford Stadium. 00:26:13 Speaker 1: Between the hedges. But, folks, wherever you are, it's hard to keep telling folks to be patient, to... Right. It's just so much is being asked of Americans right now. We just got through the midterms. We thought things were going to calm down. And it looks like it's been total chaos since the NVIDIA thing happened afterwards. Right. We got Microsoft. We got this. Oops. Chaos. Yeah. 00:26:35 Speaker 2: And it's all computers and AI and all sorts of scary stuff that we have zero control over. So, yes, we will continue to. To monitor the day today, hopefully we will not have to jump on for breaking news. We like to keep this relationship Saturday thing going. We have fun talking about lighter things, how to improve relationships, how to improve yourself. We try to focus on that on the weekends on our feed, but sometimes news just bubbles up to a point where we got to keep you updated. 00:27:03 Speaker 1: You know, you said relationship thing, and you made me smile because you did that story. You brought it to me once about the airport divorce. 00:27:10 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:27:12 Speaker 1: What if you're traveling with somebody? You have an airport divorce. Now y'all got to get together. Now you're stuck in the airport or still the airport divorce. 00:27:18 Speaker 2: Maybe it'll teach people how to actually navigate the airport together and improve their marriage because they had no other choice because sometimes a trauma bond actually works. 00:27:29 Speaker 1: All right. Way to bring it home. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: All right. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon. And.