A mid-air collision has occurred between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter at Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport. While the facts are still coming in and it’s unclear whether the pilots, the FAA, or something else was at fault, it appears that there were no survivors. But while the event was tragic, it wasn’t fully surprising. Glenn and Stu review how there has been an increase in near-misses at airports over the past few years, as Stu revealed in his Blaze Originals documentary, “Countdown to the Next Aviation Disaster.” But it’s not just the FAA that has had issues. Glenn discusses how the entire government was focusing on the wrong things under Biden and how Trump and his cabinet nominees, like Tulsi Gabbard, can fix things.
Watch “Countdown to the Next Aviation Disaster" HERE: Countdown to the Next Aviation Disaster...
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: First, let's start with the plane crash in Washington, DC. First thing that has to be said. Is pray for the families and the rescue workers. It is horrible. An experienced pilot of a passenger jet collided with what a -- what they're saying, is a fairly experienced crew of a Black Hawk helicopter. There appear to be no survivors. Sixty-seven people believed to be dead. They are still diving in the icy, icy waters of the Potomac.
The Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, is a very dangerous airport. So pray for everybody involved.
Now it's too early to assign any blame, but the usual is happening in the world much politics. Donald Trump is responsible. Blah, blah, blah.
But we do know that there is a problem. A real problem with our air traffic control system. Nobody has talked about it. Nobody in the press wants to talk about it. But there have been several near-misses and something is happening. Now, in the end, it may not be this.
But I want to bring this up. Because Stu did a whole Blaze original documentary on the dangerous conditions that are currently par for the course in our control towers.
STU: Yeah. It was called Countdown to the Next Aviation Disaster, which turned out to be 70 days from when we released it. You know, we talked about a lot of this. We don't know the cause obviously. There's still a lot of investigation to do.
You're talking about these air traffic controllers are overworked and understaffed.
And, you know, we -- of course, there are lots of concerns about things like DEI. No idea at this point whether that has anything to do with it.
One thing we did know and did see over and over in the documentary, how many times we had close calls over the past couple of years.
The pace has picked up like crazy.
The fact that we had gone all these years, without one of these incidents. Was a miracle.
I mean, it's bound to happen. There's still a lot of investigation to find out.
But this is America's like busiest runway.
GLENN: I know. And one of our shorter runways.
STU: Shorter runways.
GLENN: It's dangerous.
STU: We were just there. I just took off from that airport, a week or two ago. It is tight. Everything around there is really, really tight. It's amazing that that many helicopters could go up and down that river, and not have more of these incidents. It's very scary.
GLENN: Right. Here's the audio from the control tower.
VOICE: Aircraft in sight?
VOICE: (inaudible)
VOICE: Fire command, the accident happened in the river. Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river, the approach end of Runway 33.
VOICE: Is the airfield closed?
VOICE: Yes. The airfield is closed.
VOICE: Runways are closed?
VOICE: Yes, all runways are closed. Nobody is landing. No one is moving at all.
STU: Hmm.
GLENN: Our government is out of control, and we all know this. If you are being honest with yourself, we know this. Our government is given billions of dollars out in COVID fraud. They -- they were fraudulent with what they even said about COVID. When they gave all that money out. Nobody caught it. We're not going to get it back. Hundreds of billions of dollars at the Pentagon has just been misplaced.
They've done like 18 audits.
They have no idea where they put $600 billion.
Our Navy was told to build a dock to distribute aid to the Palestinians. After millions of dollars, it failed.
Our -- our -- our extraction from Afghanistan, everything we have touched. Not just in the last four years. But everything that had -- we have touched from the financial situation, that our government was involved in. Our health care.
Everything over the last few decades has revealed incompetence, graft, stupidity, waste, and I think intentional sabotage of our nation's will, wealth, and reputation.
But we don't have to go over that. Because that's why Donald Trump was elected.
But as I told you before, we have many dark days, ahead of us.
But then, if we allow this administration, to do what they promised, the clouds will break and be it will be a morning in America again.
And we will be able to write a new chapter. But we are in the thick of it.
Let me give you this.
You and I both know, something deeply. It deeply wrong with our intelligence agencies in this country. And every American, I don't care who you voted for. Every American should be concerned about this.
Because these agencies were supposed to be on the front line of our defense.
Keeping us safe from foreign threats, working in the shadows to protect the freedoms that we all take for granted.
That was the idea.
But I don't know when it changed. But it changed.
Somewhere along the way, the people trusted to defend our Constitution and be our rule of law. Started seeing the American people as the very people they swore to protect, as the enemy!
You've seen it. You may have even felt it personally.
The agencies that are supposed to protect us from threats abroad have turned inward. Instead of focusing on the real dangerous like China's economic warfare.
Cyber threats.
Terrorist networks.
They've been caught spying on American citizens. Censoring their dissent. Manipulating public perception.
The intelligence community, whether intentionally or through sheer institutional rot, has become a political weapon.
And you cannot deny it. This is not just some theory. You don't have to go digging into the shadows to find proof.
You don't have to listen to any conspiracy theories. It's right there in plain sight!
We watched intelligence officials interfere with the election. They buried stories that were inconvenient for the powerful. They targeted sitting presidents. They excused other sitting presidents. And if you spoke out against it, those people became a target. The best example is, well, Donald Trump.
But the next one is Tulsi Gabbard. She was a Democrat. You probably remember the moment she went from being a rising star in Washington, to a threat that had to be destroyed.
It wasn't when she served as a Democrat in Congress.
It wasn't when she was deployed to Iraq. And served honorably.
It was when she started asking questions and refused to fall in line. When she called out the war machine, they smeared her.
She became a traitor when she started to question the political machine. And when she challenged the intelligence community's narratives. She was labeled a Russian asset, almost immediately.
When she stood up to the establishment, she was quietly and without cause placed on a government terror watchlist.
Now, think about that for a second. Somebody, who is a lieutenant colonel, I believe, served honorably. I believe still serves. Ran for president of the United States, as a Democrat!
A sitting member of Congress. A woman who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Labeled as a potential terrorist. By the institutions that are supposed to defend American democracy.
That's out of control.
You know it, and I know it.
But she, despite everything they threw at her, did not back down. She fought back. She stood.
She refused to stop asking questions.
That is exactly why she needs to be confirmed as the Director of National Intelligence.
She is a proven warrior. That has shown she is not afraid to take a bullet in the field. Practice ever or a metaphorical, or physical bullet here in the country, to defend our way of life.
To ask the questions that must be asked. The person leading the intelligence community right now, should not be and cannot be another Washington insider.
It cannot be somebody who spent their year from moving from one agency to another.
It cannot be somebody who has just made all the right connections.
Learned to play the game. It must be someone who has seen the system from both the inside and the outside.
And truly understands, in her case, firsthand, how broken it is.
Because she was targeted by it.
Believe me, there is a difference between the Donald Trump of 2016, and the Trump of 2024.
What is it?
He saw the machine from the inside and the outside. And it tried to destroy him.
So he knows how dangerous it is. Much of this, in our country, is coming from black ops.
Money that just is never accounted for. Our intelligence agency turning all of the weapons, in coordination with five eyes, on you.
You know, when I talked to Donald Trump, I feel the same way I feel about Tulsi Gabbard.
When Donald Trump was on the stage in Pennsylvania, bleeding, he told me, his only thought was, this is pathetic. Get up!
Don't show them weakness. Get up!
And he got up and said, fight!
I feel the same way about Tulsi Gabbard. She has been under the gun. And she has had the courage to stand up, and face it! And continue to say it to their face. You want somebody that has the courage to make sure that what happened to them, never happens to you?
Tulsi Gabbard is that person. She knows what needs to be fixed. She knows these agencies have been abused.
And unlike the career bureaucrats, who see reform as nothing, but a talking points, she actually has the will to do something about it.
Now, think about what that means to you. A Director of National Intelligence, that isn't owned by a party.
Left or right!
Who isn't loyal to an administration.
Biden or Trump!
But is loyal to the truth.
Who has a record of saying, you know what, I was wrong about that.
Who isn't interested in maintaining the status quo.
But in restoring intelligence agencies to what they were meant to be. And if not, shut them down!
They are supposed to be defenders of the American people and our Constitution, not enforcers of an agenda! This is not about left or right. It is about whether you believe the intelligence agencies should be used to protect the country, or control the country.
Whether you think these agencies should work for you, or whether they should -- should have to live in fear, that one day, they might, might decide that you're a problem.
I know, because I've talked to senators. And I've talked to congressmen, who have told me, in the dead of night. With no cell phones around. And outdoors. They are afraid of the intelligence agencies, because they're being watched and monitored.
And they feel under threat. Now, the Senate today, is going to try to make this all about politics. They'll ask all the stupid questions like yesterday.
Are you for onesies or not? They'll pretend they're vetting her like any other nominee. But what they're really deciding is whether they want somebody in that position who will challenge the system, or just let sleeping dogs lie.
Do you want somebody who does that? Or who will shine the light where the light isn't supposed to be shined?
You want somebody who can be bullied? Can be compromised?
Or do you want someone who cannot be bullied, bought, or blackmailed into compliance.
If that's what you want, the latter. If you believe intelligence should serve truth, not power, let your senators know Tulsi Gabbard is the only choice.