Greene Calls Duffy and Mullin Briefing After Ground Stop 'a Shakedown for More Money'

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Friday accused Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin of exploiting a nationwide ground stop to demand more taxpayer money, using an expletive in a social media post to describe their joint press conference.

In a post on the social platform X, Greene contrasted the funding request with past government spending abroad. "It doesn't matter to any of them that the US Congress and every administration has spent like $15 trillion on foreign wars over the past 25 years but yeah you guys gotta fork over 50 billion more dollars so they can finally fix something in America," she wrote.

Representatives for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to The Hill's requests for comment on her remarks.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop for all U.S. flights on Friday afternoon, a rare step the agency had previously taken in 2023 and, before that, in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The FAA attributed the halt to a temporary telecommunications outage, and Duffy said the problem stemmed from a system that was overloaded with data, forcing officials to shut it down.

Speaking at the Friday evening briefing, Duffy renewed his push for $50 billion to modernize the nation's air traffic control system, a priority he has championed as transportation secretary. "I want $50 billion," Duffy said. "Let's finish this job: new hardware, new software, new telecommunication."

Mullin told reporters there was no indication of a cyberattack or anything nefarious behind the outage, though he said officials would not rule anything out. Greene rejected that assessment, claiming without evidence that the secretaries were lying and that the disruption was obviously a cyberattack.

The FAA recently introduced an AI-powered air traffic control tool known as the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories program, or SMART. The system, which debuted first in the Washington, D.C., area, cost the department $875 million.

Air Space Intelligence, the company behind the SMART tool, issued a statement Friday night denying any connection to the ground stop, a denial Duffy echoed during the briefing.

Duffy also directed a pointed appeal at lawmakers, urging Congress to give President Trump and himself the funding needed to complete the modernization effort so officials would not have to hold a press conference at 8:30 at night ever again.