Transcript: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” November 15, 2026

The following is the transcript of the interview with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy broadcast on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on November 15, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: For more, we now turn to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Good morning to you, Mr. Secretary. Will the country be fully operational again with a full flight schedule by the end of today?

SECOND. SEAN DUFFY: So we have some delays in the airspace right now, but if we look at the end of the day and tomorrow, we should be operating at full capacity. What happens during a ground stop, like Friday, we have planes and crews that are not in position, so it takes a little time for the airlines to come back and choreograph and to full capacity and operations, but we are on the right track.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So I know there was a router in El Dorado, Arkansas, as I understand it, that became a problem on Friday. You said this morning on another network that there had been a second problem at a radar site in Amarillo, Texas. Are these two things related? And if so, why did they both become problems on Friday?

SECOND. DUFFY: Yeah, so the… the Amarillo installation – that work had been done weeks ago, and so why – when we did the installation in El Dorado, did that start streaming data into our network? But also the Amarillo facility, why did that happen? We are investigating this at the moment. We actually have both routers with L3Harris, which operates and owns our network. The FAA is also on site. The FBI offers its support. We’re looking into this right now, and when we know what the root cause of this problem was – was it – was it the L3Harris installation? Was it the router? I will tell you and the American people what we find.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So was the problem old infrastructure or was it new equipment?

SECOND. DUFFY: So, first of all, telecommunications in El Dorado, it was old copper wire that was basically going to be decommissioned. They said it couldn’t be used anymore. So we were forced by the telecom provider to upgrade that copper to fiber, and we brought in our routers and did the work, and that’s when we saw the flooding of the network. So this was- this is part of our maintenance that we do on this very old architecture of a telecommunications network that was- I mean, this goes back decades. By the way, the rest of the world, every institution, every company, not just in the United States but around the world, have all gone digital and fiber optic. It’s just that the FAA is still using this very old telecommunications network that needs to be updated, improved and, I think, built entirely new.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the union that represents aviation security specialists, PASS, as they’re called, said the problem was limited to two routers owned and maintained by a contractor that were being updated in the middle of the day, and they said their technicians were not involved in the upgrades. So I’m wondering if the FAA did a risk assessment in advance and knew something like this had happened, or were you totally caught off guard?

SECOND. DUFFY: So let’s be clear, the union that works at the FAA will do the work on the radios – our equipment, or the radars – our equipment. They perform all work on FAA-owned equipment. This union does no work in the telecommunications field, and it is our telecommunications contractors and suppliers like L3Harris who are in this situation. They are the ones who actually do the work. So the FAA lets L3Harris come into our sites, and then L3Harris will do the telecommunications work. But our… this union only works on our equipment. This telecom is not our… it’s not our equipment. This is the L3Harris network. So just to clarify that, this was done properly, which, by the way, has been done thousands of times by us, by others, and by other companies. This has never happened, and that’s why when you have a remote location like this, we felt comfortable doing it in the middle of the day because it’s been done thousands of times. We have never had this situation. We’re going to have to re-evaluate now when we do this work. Now normally if you have a large facility, in Newark or Atlanta or Los Angeles, we have work to do, we do it at night, but in a remote location we can do it during the day because the risk has always been very low. Obviously on Friday we saw no, it flooded our network and we had to take the extraordinary step of doing a ground check.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there was no risk assessment, or there was a risk assessment, and it just wasn’t anticipated as a problem?

SECOND. DUFFY: Oh no, no, look, we do risk assessment for everything, right? And if you want to talk about a risk assessment, the GAO did a risk assessment on my network, on all the old equipment, and they’ll say, “Hey, this is…this is America at risk. Invest in and fix America’s air traffic control systems.” And by the way, Congress gave me $12.5 billion.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SECOND. DUFFY: I… I ordered a new radar, new radios, new voice switches. We do all of this, but it’s also risky to say that we operate on a 1980s network with copper wires. We therefore carried out a risk assessment: how to move from copper to fiber? We ensure the safety of planes in the sky. This is our number one priority. We did it, and that’s why it worked thousands of times when we made the transition.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, when…

SECOND. DUFFY: – this time it doesn’t, and they continue.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. So you just mentioned the Government Accountability Office. They also concluded, in a September report, that there is a desire to modernize quickly and that the FAA is buying speed of delivery at the risk of cost uncertainty and potential disruption. So, should you have seen this coming?

SECOND. DUFFY: Well, first of all, as far as the GAO is concerned, my number one priority is safety, which is why we closed the airspace on Friday, correct? We closed…

MARGARET BRENNAN: They’re talking about speed.

SECOND. DUFFY: No, I’ll get there. But I want to make sure Americans get from point A to point B safely. They return to their loved ones. I want them to be on time, but I want them to be safe, which is why we issued a ground check. As far as speed goes, we’re going, I think, at the right speed, we need to move away from the old network, the old telecommunications. This is also why I have already switched more than 70% of copper to fiber without incident, without problem. Nearly 470 radios were switched. New new flight tracks and electronic towers. We’re doing incredible work, and let’s be clear about one thing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SECOND. DUFFY: For decades, this work within the FAA was not done. This was not done because it is difficult. I don’t want to be dishonest. This is a difficult problem to solve. The Trump administration, under my leadership, is solving the problem. We build and deploy new technologies. One of my problems is that I need more money to… to build a new…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SECOND. DUFFY: … telecommunications network. I need new software, but we are doing the right thing through the American people by fixing this very, very old system that has been left to us.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But respectfully, the American people have invested a lot of money in infrastructure upgrades. In 2021, it was $25 billion for improvements under Biden. Under your administration, the Trump administration, as you just said, $12.5 billion for modernization. Democrats claim that the lion’s share of the money you were provided with is simply that you did not commit or spend it. For what? And if the White House has authorized reprogramming of funds, why do you continue to say that Congress is preventing you from spending the money they are giving you?

SECOND. DUFFY: First of all, a lot of money has been given to the FAA in the past, and I can’t answer for other secretaries or other FAA administrators. A lot of money was given, but little work was done. So when I asked for a massive amount of money to fix the system, Congress said, “Okay, we’ll give you partial funding, $12.5 billion,” in one big, beautiful bill. And they were very specific about how we spent it. Now I can’t… I can’t buy radar off the shelf. This is a massive order. So we asked those who won the contract: I want them to build the radar in America. They will start delivering these radars to us in the spring. All of them will be deployed by the end of 2028. So all that money wasn’t spent, but it was spent on the radar. Radio is the same thing. I buy radios, but they aren’t on the shelves. We have to build them. They specifically outlined how I was spending the money, and I have – and I have spent it all, ready to be deployed by the end of the president’s term. But what I don’t have money for is a new telecommunications system. I don’t have money for new software. These are essential elements of infrastructure, in which we have historically underinvested. I am making this point to the American people and to Congress. For the first time, the FAA is taking your money, and we’re actually building with your money. Let me continue. Let’s finish the job. Let’s not see what happened on Friday. Let’s not let this happen again

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is the total demand $50 billion?

SECOND. DUFFY: Let’s make sure we keep the American people safe – yes, $50 billion.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Very well, Mr. Secretary. I’m told you need to go to another network. Thank you for your time this morning. “Face the Nation” will be back in a minute. Stay with us.