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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to two other confirmation hearings that took place Thursday for roles overseeing American intelligence and law enforcement. Director of national intelligence pick Tulsi Gabbard faced bipartisan skepticism, while Trump’s pick to head the FBI, Kash Patel, appeared to have the support he needs despite vocal opposition from the Democrats. Kash Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, downplaying his past promotion of right-wing conspiracy theories and said only 40% of Americans have faith in the FBI. While Republicans hailed him as a reformer, Democrats grilled Patel over his past comments calling for a so-called enemies list and praising the January 6th rioters. This is Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

SEN. DICK DURBIN: Mr. Patel posted on social media, quote, “January 6th, never an insurrection. Cowards in uniform exposed,” end of quote. Let me repeat that: “Cowards in uniform exposed.” Who was in the Capitol Building on January 6th in uniform? The Capitol Police were. Do you think they were cowards? Many of them risked their lives, and some gave their lives, in defense of this building. How about the D.C. police, who were here, as well? They were in uniform. Cowards? Risking their lives, as well, some of them being battered and beaten by these mobsters that came into the Capitol. And Mr. Patel claims that the FBI agency aspires to lead — get this now — was planning January 6th for a year. He says the FBI was planning January 6th for a year. That’s a quote. Mr. Patel has gone so far as to co-produce and sell musical recordings of a song performed by January 6th rioters in jail.

AMY GOODMAN: Democrats also focused on Kash Patel’s record of going after journalists and calling for retribution against people he believes are trying to undermine President Trump. This is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island questioning Patel.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Here’s what this nominee himself has said about using his office to prosecute journalists. “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly.” Is that a correct quotation, Mr. Patel?

KASH PATEL: Senator, that’s a partial quotation.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: But it’s correct.

KASH PATEL: In part.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Regarding his publication of his enemies list, Mr. Patel proclaimed, “The manhunt starts tomorrow,” and reposted a video depicting him taking a chainsaw to his political enemies. Is that you, Kash Patel, retruthed, reposting that at the top of that page?

KASH PATEL: Senator, I had nothing to do with the creation of that meme.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: “Is that you reposting it?” was my question.

KASH PATEL: And that’s me at the top.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: You said FBI agents were responsible for the violence on January 6th — and I quote you here — “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Is that what you said?

KASH PATEL: That’s completely incorrect, and I appreciate the opportunity to address that.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: I’ll give that you an opportunity in writing, but this is my time now.

KASH PATEL: You can have at it.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: An inspector attorney general investigation found that that was false. And you said we should impeach judges who rule against Donald Trump who are, in your words, “political terrorists.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Senator Whitehouse questioning Kash Patel. This is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Have you referred to the media as “the most powerful enemy of the United States that they have ever seen”? Is that right?

KASH PATEL: Again, you’re reading a quote. I tape regularly and actively —

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: It’s to CPAC, 2-23-24. You said, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig the elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly.” Is that something you said?

KASH PATEL: That’s a partial statement of what I said.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Steve Bannon’s podcast. You also said you would put the entire fake news mafia press corps on your list. Is that correct? Is that what you said?

KASH PATEL: I don’t have that in front of me.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Benny Johnson podcast, 8-21-23.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard nomination hearings, we’re joined now by Chip Gibbons from Washington, D.C., journalist, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, where he’s advised multiple congressional offices on reforming the Espionage Act, currently working on a book on the history of the FBI for Verso Books.

Chip, thanks for joining us. Before we move to Tulsi Gabbard, if you can talk about Kash Patel talking about going after journalists and also making an enemies list?

CHIP GIBBONS: Well, Kash Patel is one of Donald Trump’s most disturbing picks, and that is saying something. Patel’s comments about going after journalists should be very alarming, first of all because no one should be in a law enforcement or intelligence position who wants to go after journalists.

I think we have to clarify that the FBI is both a law enforcement agency and an intelligence agency. It’s been a hybrid agency since Hoover, and Hoover used the intelligence aspects of the FBI to go after King, to go after civil rights protesters. And in spite of this myth of sort of the reformed FBI, ever since then, they’ve been doing exactly the same thing. While writing my book, I’ve come up with documents from right before 9/11 that showed them spying on World Bank protesters, with incredibly intrusive means. So the FBI is a political police force. And we are nominating someone who has shown themselves to be gleeful about using his political policing powers.

The journalism comments are extremely disturbing because the FBI has broad powers to go after journalists. Because the unauthorized disclosure of national defense information is governed by the Espionage Act, authority for enforcing leak investigations is in the intelligence division of the FBI, the division with the least restrictions and most surveillance. And I will note that the Heritage Foundation, in Project 2025, has called for hiring more FBI counterintelligence agents with the goals of finding journalists’ sources and imprisoning them. Unfortunately, there has been a bipartisan trend in this country to come after first journalists’ sources, like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and then, under the Trump and Biden administrations, to go after journalist Julian Assange. When you look at what was in the plea deal that Julian Assange agreed to — that he is a journalist, and he worked with a source to publish classified information, and that is a conspiracy under the Espionage Act — Kash Patel has the perfect tool to go after Trump’s critics in the media.

So, Patel’s desire to go after journalists and their sources, the fact that both parties have created and cemented the tools to do so, and the fact that the FBI is a political policing bureaucracy makes Patel an extraordinarily dangerous figure. And we should be extremely concerned about what’s coming down the pike, while also acknowledging that if we did not have this bipartisan building up of the surveillance state, this bipartisan ratification of the Espionage Act, this bipartisan use of it against whistleblowers like Snowden, with journalists like Assange —

AMY GOODMAN: Chip —

CHIP GIBBONS: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Brian Deer, I want to move on to another issue. You wrote the book The Doctor Who Fooled the World. I want to go right now to another interaction in the Senate, another exchange. This is independent Senator Bernie Sanders questioning RFK Jr. Thursday alongside Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician and key Republican vote.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I find myself in the unusual and uncomfortable position of having to agree with Senator Cassidy’s line of questioning. Mr. Kennedy, in an interview in July 2023, you stated, quote, “I do believe autism does come from vaccines,” and you have — end of quote — and you have praised a gentleman named Andrew Wakefield for his research. Where — what studies — you talk about the need to be science-based, to get our information, good information, to make decisions. What studies have you utilized to come to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m happy to sit down with you.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No, no. Please, just answer me now. You —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I mean, look at the Mawson study, Senator.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The what? Yeah, well, we —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Mawson. Just look at that study.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah, I will. And that was published —

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: And I don’t — you know, I don’t want to — I wouldn’t rest on a single study.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: All studies can be —

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: OK. OK. Don’t mean to be rude. I don’t have a lot of time.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Just saying we — 

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: You would not be — I just heard you say you would not — could not be happier if you were proved wrong. Mr. Chairman, I ask to put into the record 16 studies done by scientists and doctors all over the world saying that vaccines do not cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN: So, in the last few minutes we have, Brian Deer — you wrote the book The Doctor Who Fooled the World. You were talking about Dr. Andrew Wakefield. If you can comment on what’s the connection between Robert Kennedy and Dr. Andrew Wakefield, known as the father of the anti-vaccine movement?

BRIAN DEER: Well, they basically run this movement together. Kennedy, Andrew Wakefield and another man, Del Bigtree, who works with them both, are, if you like, the innermost circle of this movement, which has evolved in recent years.

Andrew Wakefield is a research cheat. He was responsible for a fraudulent study published in London in 1998 that was referred to by another senator yesterday, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and she broke down as she was trying to explain that she has a developmentally challenged son and that she had blamed herself or had agonized over whether she should blame herself for having vaccinated her son and whether it was something she had done that caused his disability. And she was breaking down there even during the hearing as she was trying to get her words out. The suffering that parents have been exposed to as a result of this man Andrew Wakefield, in particular, and his research paper that she was referring to, and Bernie Sanders was referring to, published in London in 1998, and, I would say, was the honor of my life to have caused to be retracted and exposed for what it was.

AMY GOODMAN: Brian Deer, I want to thank you for being with us, investigative journalist, author of The Doctor Who Fooled the World. We’ll link to your New York Times op-ed, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.”

Next up, the confirmation hearings of Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel. Back in 20 seconds.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to several confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill for President Trump’s Cabinet members, beginning with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who faced a second day of hearings for health secretary. Kennedy has previously campaigned as pro-choice, but during the hearing he repeatedly said he believes, quote, “every abortion is a tragedy,” and vowed to implement Trump’s policies. He also gave incorrect information about Medicare and Medicaid.

Kennedy’s long record of vaccine skepticism was a major focus. He repeatedly refused to disavow the debunked link between vaccines and autism and refused to acknowledge COVID vaccines are lifesaving. But he ended with this claim:

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Before I conclude, I want to make sure this committee is clear about a few things. News reports and many in the hearing yesterday have claimed that I’m anti-vaccine and anti-industry. Well, I’m neither. I’m pro-safety. I’m pro-good science. I worked for 40 years to raise awareness about mercury and other toxics in fish, and nobody called me anti-fish. All my kids are vaccinated. I believe vaccines have saved millions of lives and play a critical role in healthcare.

AMY GOODMAN: In the same hearing on Thursday, Kennedy defended his trip to Samoa in June of 2019, four months before a measles outbreak was declared that killed 83 people, mostly children. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense offered to finance the trip. This is Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts questioning Kennedy about that trip.

SEN. ED MARKEY: So, let me just follow through now, 2019. So, now, in October of 2019, the CDC declared a measles outbreak in Samoa. And in November, Samoa started a mass vaccination campaign to stop the outbreak. That same month, November of 2019, after 16 people had already died from the outbreak and Samoa was trying to respond to the crisis, you sent a letter to the prime minister of Samoa stating that, quote, “It is a regrettable possibility that these children are [casualties] of the vaccine.” By unanimous consent, I will introduce that letter into the record.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: Without objection.

SEN. ED MARKEY: So, as Samoa was trying to contain the outbreak, you were saying that it was the fault of the vaccine, rather than the absence of vaccinations, that caused the outbreak in Samoa in the same year you visited Samoa.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: And I replied to that, Senator — 

SEN. ED MARKEY: Now, the death count — let me — let me just finish. The death count in Samoa grew to 83. And ultimately, volunteers in New Zealand sent tiny coffins to help bury the dozens of children who died. And the Samoan director general of health later said, “With his last name and the status attached to it, people will believe him. People will believe Robert Kennedy.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Senator Markey. This week, Samoa’s prime minister criticized RFK Jr.’s vaccine views and said she’s surprised by his nomination for health secretary.

For more, we’re joined by two guests, but we’re going to begin in Apia, the capital of Samoa. We’ll begin with Aiono Dr. Alec Ekeroma, who is the current director general of health for Samoa’s Health Ministry.

Doctor, welcome to Democracy Now! Thanks for joining us from Samoa. Can you explain? For two days we’ve heard about Samoa. Explain exactly what happened in 2019.

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

In 2019, Samoa had a very low vaccination rate, and that was because of some problems back in 2018 with a matching-mixing of vaccines that resulted in two deaths. And so, therefore, we had a low vaccination rate already. And then Kennedy visited, before the measles outbreak. Now, the measles outbreak, of course, it came from New Zealand across the islands, and because of a low vaccination rate, it just took off, and so resulting in so many deaths.

But the government responded quickly and demanded a vaccine campaign — vaccination campaign, and there was some international assistance to Samoa from all countries in the world, who came across — doctors and nurses came across to Samoa to help with the mass vaccination of our people. So, that drove the vaccination up, rate up, to 90%, within a few months.

So, Kennedy’s presence in Samoa a few months before that actually emboldened the anti-vaxxers locally and also from New Zealand. And so, they were the ones, really, that tried to sow the vaccine hesitancy in the country. But, fortunately, our leaders did not believe that and mounted this emergency and mass vaccination campaign.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did Kennedy go to Samoa?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: Apparently, he came to talk about some database that they could create. But when he was here, he talked to — well, he talked to the director — the then-director general of health and to the prime minister, but he also talked to local anti-vaxxers, as well. So, I’m not privy to what was discussed, but the result of his visit didn’t result in any improvements in our ICT or software capabilities in the country. None was promised.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring our other guest into this conversation. As we talk to the health director in Samoa, I also want to bring Brian Deer in, who was there in 2018 — in 2019 in the midst of the measles outbreak. He’s an investigative journalist and author of The Doctor Who Fooled the World. His recent New York Times opinion piece, “I’ll Never Forget What Kennedy Did During Samoa’s Measles Outbreak.” So, can you elaborate further on what Dr. Ekeroma is saying?

BRIAN DEER: Good morning, Amy.

Yes, indeed, I was out in Samoa at the time, and I spent a great deal of my time there speaking to the mothers of children who died from measles. And it was the most emotional experience, and I ended my time there just crying, as I became overcome by the pain of these mothers. Eighty-three people died, overwhelmingly small children.

Now, Mr. Kennedy thinks he knows better than anybody else. He claims that he’s not anti-vaccine. I’ve been following what is now called the anti-vaccine movement for 25 years. And I can assure you that Mr. Kennedy is not only an anti-vaccine campaigner, he is the preeminent anti-vaccine campaigner in the world. And he went to Samoa, and after the outbreak began, he then wrote to the prime minister, trying to suggest that it wasn’t, in fact, the virus at all that was killing these children, but was, in fact, the responsibility of the vaccine itself.

And he didn’t stop there. Even this week, speaking to senators, he claimed that nobody knows what these children died from, even though the measles was — the vaccine there had collapsed as a result of other issues. And then, after a vaccination campaign that followed the outbreak, or took part — occurred at the same time as the outbreak, the children stopped dying. But Mr. Kennedy felt that he should tell senators that nobody knows what killed those children — extraordinary thing for him to say.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think, Brian Deer — and then I want to ask the health minister in Samoa — of him being the health secretary, the secretary of health and human services of the United States?

BRIAN DEER: Well, I have to say, listening to him over the last couple of days, Amy, that I was shocked by the attitude he displayed. He was making it absolutely clear that notwithstanding him being the — hoping to become the head of an agency with a $2,000 billion budget and employing 90,000 people, he was going to personally involve himself in vaccine science, and it would be he who would be deciding whether the research was conducted properly, even though he has no medical or scientific qualifications at all, and not the enormous staff he represents and the agencies, that have actually written to him previously telling him that the research overwhelmingly and conclusively shows that there is no link between vaccines and, for example, autism. He was making it absolutely clear to senators that he was going to — in that job, with those enormous responsibilities, for that massive entity, he was going to involve himself in the individual pieces of research and deciding for himself whether vaccines, for example, cause autism.

AMY GOODMAN: And before we leave Samoa, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, if you can talk about the significance of if he is confirmed as health secretary here in the U.S.?

DR. ALEC EKEROMA: It is quite significant. Someone who is prominent in the world, with a [inaudible], spitting out anti-vaccine sentiments, emboldening anti-vaxxers around the world and in Samoa, is going to be a public health disaster for us. Already, we’re going to have reduction in U.S. funding to United Nations and to WHO that is going to affect our capability here. And then you add in Bob Kennedy into this role, that is going to slow down the flow of vaccines to us, that is going to harm our public health state in this country. And so, therefore, it will be a disaster for us.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Dr. Alec Ekeroma, for joining us, director general of health for Samoa’s Health Ministry.

AMY GOODMAN: During a White House press briefing Thursday, President Trump said the cause of Wednesday’s midair collision of a U.S. military helicopter with an American passenger jet at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people is still unknown, but Trump proceeded to blame, without evidence, Democrats and federal workplace DEI initiatives for the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in more than two decades.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety. We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. It matters intellect, talent. The word “talent.” They have to be talented, naturally talented, geniuses. You can’t have regular people doing that job. They won’t be able to do it. But we’ll restore faith in American air travel. I’ll have more to say about that.

I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office — and here’s one: “The FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.” That is amazing. And then it says, ”FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce.” So they want them in, and they want them — they can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so. This was on January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump was reading from a year-old online report about efforts at the FAA to hire people with disabilities. During the news conference, journalists repeatedly questioned Trump about his unfounded assertions. This is one exchange with New York Times reporter David Sanger.

DAVID SANGER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity element, but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones — 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

DAVID SANGER: — who made the mistake.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s all under investigation.

DAVID SANGER: I understand that. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because I have common sense, OK?

AMY GOODMAN: During Thursday’s news conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed Donald Trump’s attacks on diversity.

DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: We will have the best and brightest in every position possible — as you said in your inaugural, it is colorblind and merit-based — the best leaders possible, whether it’s flying Black Hawks and flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government. The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest, whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals or whether it’s throughout government.

AMY GOODMAN: During Thursday’s press conference, Vice President JD Vance echoed Trump’s attacks on DEI.

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means, on the one hand, you’re not getting the best people in government, but, on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there. And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington, D.C., is we want to hire the best people, because we want the best people in air traffic control, and we want to make sure we have enough people in air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job. If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers but they were turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership, because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Bill McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at American Economic Liberties Project. As an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher, he spent seven years in airline flight operations management and is the author of Attention All Passengers: The Airlines’ Dangerous Descent — and How to Reclaim Our Skies. He teaches at Vaughn College of Aeronautics. Bill McGee’s new piece for Frommer’s is headlined “The Big Lie of Aviation DEI.”

Now, I want to point out, Bill, that you wrote this piece not in response to the news conference at the White House, but before the White House news conference and before the crash. Can you talk about what’s going on here? President Trump, when asked about any other issue, said, “Well, the investigation has to continue,” but he still blamed the crash on DEI.

WILLIAM McGEE: Yes, you’re right. The fact is that these rumors, which are unfounded, have been swirling around aviation for more than 20 years, but they are not based in fact. That’s why I wrote what I wrote in Frommer’s the other day. That was, again, as you pointed out, you know, the day before the crash. But it’s not as if what we heard this week we haven’t heard before. And it’s simply unfounded. As you just pointed out, these rumors are not at all based in fact.

What the DEI initiatives at the FAA — and at other agencies, as well, but specifically at the FAA — what they were meant to do was to broaden the pool of recruitment for positions. But this needs to be said in all caps, in bold. The fact is, there has not been a loosening of standards. The same standards have to to apply, in terms of testing — you know, when I was licensed as an FAA dispatcher, we had a written test, we had an oral test, we had an eight-hour practical exam. All of those things are still in place. No one is going into safety critical jobs without being prepared.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill McGee, Trump blamed Biden. He blamed Obama. He blamed Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary. He said, “They actually came out with a directive: ‘too white.’ And we want the people that are competent,” he said. They kept talking about “the best and the brightest,” not to be confused with “the best and the whitest.” If you can comment on this and the history of this, where his certainty comes from? He says it’s just common sense, yet presented absolutely no evidence.

WILLIAM McGEE: Well, I think we need to step back a moment and look at the bigger picture with what is really going on here. We have an aviation industry in crisis, and we’ve had that for several years now, at the FAA, at Boeing, at the airlines. And for every minute that we spend talking about DEI, we’re not talking about so many other critical issues.

FAA safety inspectors, they have been understaffed for 40 years. It’s not just a matter of throwing money at these problems, but the FAA needs to be realigned. Since the Reagan administration, it has not kept pace with the industry. And, you know, we can go through a long list of problems that are not being addressed by this.

And every time I hear this, DEI — that’s why I wrote the column I wrote — the DEI issue, in my view, it’s a distraction. I mean, for those that are serious about aviation safety, they know we have a long laundry list of problems that need to be addressed, with air traffic control, with maintenance outsourcing, with the oversight of the airlines, the oversight of Boeing. And instead, we’re talking about a nonsensical issue that is not based in fact.

AMY GOODMAN: After Donald Trump’s inauguration, the White House issued an executive order titled “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation” that rescinds all diversity, equity and inclusion hiring programs at the FAA. I want to turn to Rick Larsen, ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, criticizing the executive order in a statement, saying, quote, “Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the Administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision.” And you have, Bill, The New York Times reporting, and others, that it looks like the Black Hawk helicopter, with the three, and usually it’s supposed to be four people, soldiers inside, being off the actual route and too high.

WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, you’re right. And I think Representative Larsen is correct, as well. We have had an air traffic controller shortage in this country for several years now. These issues cross political lines, by the way. They go back years and years. And the pipeline, it actually improved under Secretary Buttigieg and President Biden. We started seeing more air traffic controllers come online. But we do not have enough.

And when you look at what happened the other night in the Potomac River — I know that airport very, very well, DCA, because when I was working in airline flight operations, I worked for the Northeast Shuttle, so I dealt with DCA, dispatching flights there every day of the week. And I can tell you it’s one of the most challenging airports in the country. And we need the absolute full staffing of air traffic control at DCA and at airports all across the country. We’re not there.

The irony here is that for all the knock on DEI, it’s about doing that. It’s about broadening the net of trying to attract more people into aviation, people that traditionally were not drawn to aviation. You mentioned I teach at Vaughn College of Aeronautics. It happens to be the most diverse student body of any college in the country. And I see it all the time. We’re sending more and more people into aviation who wouldn’t before.

So, you know, we need to get rid of the rumors, that are unfounded, about the safety question, and we need to start doing things to improve the system, including staffing, staffing at the FAA on the air traffic control side and staffing at the FAA on the safety inspector side. We all know that Boeing is a mess. This was once probably the greatest corporation in this country. And why is it a mess? Well, in large measure, it’s because the FAA hasn’t been able to inspect it. They have something called the designee system, that allows Boeing employees to be the eyes and ears of the FAA. Imagine that. Imagine having to tell your boss that you need to shut down the assembly line. You’re a mid-level manager, and your mortgage is riding on this. It’s a system that really needs to be revamped from top to bottom.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the crash comes as the Federal Aviation Administration is lacking an administrator, though Trump just named one. But it was lacking an FAA administrator after Elon Musk pressured Mike Whitaker to announce his early resignation in December. Musk was furious with Whitaker after the FAA fined Musk’s SpaceX over $600,000 for safety violations on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Musk has also accused the FAA of slowing development of its experimental Starship rocket. Earlier this month, the FAA grounded Starship after a test vehicle caught fire, veered off course and exploded high above the Caribbean, the disaster triggering massive sonic booms as fiery debris reentered the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, littering the Turks and Caicos with rocket parts and forcing airlines to divert dozens of flights. So, the richest man in the world forces the head of the FAA out, and now, just after the crash, Trump names a new FAA administrator, Christopher Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the agency. Can you respond to Musk and what you know about the new FAA head?

WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, you raise a great question, you know, because about 15 years ago, the FAA Reauthorization Act in Congress specifically changed the parameters so that the FAA administrator term would be five years. And the clear intent there was that aviation safety is so critical that it should rise above politics, and that a five-year term would guarantee that an administrator would be in office during any kind of a presidential transition from one party to another, from one president to another.

Well, we didn’t see that happen, right? Michael Whitaker was in office only for a little more than a year. He should have been in office for five years. And he was removed on Inauguration Day. As you say, all of the media reports indicate this was because of Musk and because of Whitaker coming down on his company. This is not how the system is supposed to work. Aviation safety should be above politics.

And unfortunately, for decades now, we have seen not administrators, but acting administrators. That’s what we have seen in the first Trump administration. You know, you’ll recall the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX accidents. It wasn’t until after the second accident, in early 2019, that it was as if the administration woke up and said, “Oh, we don’t have an FAA administrator.” Now, I know there are those that are going to say an acting administrator is almost as good as an administrator. It’s not the case. Yes, they can run the day-to-day, and they can deal with crises, and they can, you know, put out whatever fires are burning that day. But they do not have the ability to look at long-term issues, including staffing. And so, we have to start treating this more seriously. A permanent FAA administrator needs to be in place at all times.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have right now — yeah, he may be the richest man in the world, not to be glib, but the guy who keeps blowing up rockets is now influencing airline safety policy.

WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, it’s a very dangerous situation. There’s no two ways about it. Again, you know, the FAA used to be called the gold standard for a government agency overseeing aviation. Other nations, when they had problems, when they had accidents, that weren’t even in any way related to the United States, not involving a U.S.-built aircraft, not involving a U.S. airline, they would turn to the FAA and the NTSB and ask for assistance. We are no longer the gold standard. It’s just that simple. We have seen it in recent years when other countries have said, “No, we’ll do without the FAA on this investigation,” particularly after the Boeing MAX crashes. This is not how to run the FAA, to have someone like Elon Musk come in and make these decisions.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill McGee, I want to thank you for being with us, senior fellow for aviation and travel at American Economic Liberties Project, an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher. We’re going to link to your new piece for Frommer’s titled — for Frommer’s, “The Big Lie of Aviation DEI.” Bill McGee was editor-in-chief of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and he is the author of Attention All Passengers.

Coming up next, Samoa, where experts blame RFK Jr.’s campaign against vaccines for a deadly measles outbreak in 2019. Back in 20 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Broken English” by Marianne Faithfull. The British singer, actress, pop icon died Thursday at the age of 78.