Buttigieg insists congressional intervention to prevent rail strike is 'best way forward'
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg talks with Fox News Digital about the threat of a nationwide rail strike and how Congress should intervene.
White House chief of staff Ronald Klain ripped into Axios on Thursday after the news outlet reported that Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s first two years in office were plagued with problems.
Klain slammed the claim as "ridiculous" and insisted that Buttigieg has "done an incredible job" while in office.
The article in question, published Thursday morning, reported that a "historic string of air, rail and supply-chain meltdowns has plagued Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's first two years in office, placing him — for better or worse — at the center of crises affecting millions of people."
FAA OUTAGE: WHITE HOUSE SAYS ‘NO EVIDENCE OF CYBER ATTACK,’ BIDEN BRIEFED ON GROUNDED FLIGHTS
White House chief of staff Ronald Klain listens during a cabinet meeting with President Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 20, 2021. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Image)
The piece dropped right in the middle of a major airline crisis with a Federal Aviation Administration computer system glitch causing thousands of cancellations and delays in domestic flights between Wednesday and Thursday. The transportation secretary took plenty of heat for the issue.
Because of this and previous incidents happening during Buttigieg’s time in office, including being on the brink of a nationwide freight rail strike last year and lingering "global supply chain snarls linked to the COVID-19 pandemic," Axios wrote, "A modest Cabinet role has become a political albatross for one of the Democratic Party's brightest young stars."
The article did note that much of the criticism Buttigieg received for these problems came from Republican critics and that Democrats still approve of his leadership. The outlet wrote, "Republicans have sought to make Buttigieg the face of the transport disruptions, while Democrats say his crisis leadership is proving his political mettle."
Axios featured a quote from former Obama Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who defended Buttigieg, saying, "You can’t go a day at DOT without some kind of a crisis. You have to provide the leadership, which I think Secretary Buttigieg has."
FAA HAS OPERATED WITHOUT A SENATE-CONFIRMED DIRECTOR FOR NEARLY A YEAR
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg speaks at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Sept. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Still, Klain was unwilling to let Buttigieg’s tenure be portrayed in any sort of negative way.
In response to Axios’ tweet on its story, an indignant Klain wrote, "This is a ridiculous take. As we have reopened the economy and accelerated its growth, there have been many challenges. @SecretaryPete has done an incredible job in tackling them and getting America moving again -- without the kind of disruptions we've seen in other countries."
A message board shows departures at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday. A computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration brought flights to a standstill across the U.S. on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)
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Klain has a history of railing against or supporting media takes while in office. In 2021, the White House chief of staff turned heads by promoting a column in The Hill that claimed "2021 Wasn’t All Bad" and defended the Biden administration. Klain shared the piece on Twitter as evidence that the White House he worked in was competent.
According to author Chris Whipple’s new book, "The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House," Klain reportedly claimed that the media often "invents" panic on issues that the Biden White House is trying to deal with, which "frustrates" the president.
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