Lisa McCormick blames President Donald Trump for aviation danger

In a nation that once set the global standard for aviation, the skies have grown increasingly treacherous, and one vocal critic is pointing a steady finger at the man in the White House after two planes collided on the tarmac of New York City's LaGuardia Airport. 

Anti-establishment progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick is calling out President Donald Trump for what she describes as a reckless dismantling of the systems that keep American air travel safe, creating a cascade of crises from control towers to tarmacs.

The evidence, she argues, is written in the headlines of the past year. It began with a deadly midair collision near the nation's capital and has since unfolded in a series of near-misses, harrowing close calls, and systemic breakdowns. 

The most recent alarm bell sounded Wednesday night, when two planes operated by Delta Air Lines subsidiary Endeavor Air collided on the tarmac of New York City's LaGuardia Airport

On July 18, 2025, a SkyWest regional jet operating as Delta flight 3788 made an abrupt maneuver to avoid a B-52 bomber near Minot, North Dakota. The Delta captain saw the approaching military aircraft on a collision course and abruptly dove to avoid a collision, a heart-stopping maneuver that left passengers looking at grass instead of sky. 

The pilot’s chilling announcement to the cabin said it all: “We had to avoid a B-52. Nobody told us about it. This is not normal at all.”

But McCormick contends this is the new normal under an incompetent administration that has treated aviation safety as a bureaucratic inconvenience. 

The government shutdown is only the latest evidence that the skies are falling because of Trump.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) expressed its disappointment that Congress was unable to reach a funding agreement, as the union called on officials to end the government shutdown as soon as possible.

As a result of the shutdown, more than 2,350 NATCA-represented aviation safety professionals are furloughed, including aircraft certification engineers and aerospace engineers. Critical safety and technology work, as well as operational support, will not be performed while these workers are sidelined.

"A government shutdown is a self-inflicted wound on our aviation system,” McCormick said. “Congressional Republicans must stop playing games, fund the government, and stop compromising the safety of our national airspace."

“What we are witnessing is not a string of bad luck, but the direct consequence of a calculated campaign to defund, destabilize, and dismantle the Federal Aviation Administration,” McCormick said. “The president’s policies have turned our air traffic control system into a game of roulette, where the stakes are the lives of every passenger and crew member in the sky.”

The rot, she says, is systemic. It is seen in the chronic understaffing of control towers, where overworked controllers are pushed to the brink. It was laid bare in the paralysis of the Philadelphia air traffic control center, which triggered a ground stop across the New York metro area and left Newark Airport—a perennial choke point—in chaos. 

It is evident in the purging of experienced FAA personnel and the administration’s flirtation with replacing proven communications technology with unproven systems.

“They have created a perfect storm of negligence,” McCormick stated. “You have ancient technology failing, critical staff shortages, and a disturbing breakdown in coordination between military and civilian aviation. This isn't about cutting red tape; it's about severing vital arteries.”

The human cost is mounting. While the administration attributes a recent spate of accidents to statistical anomalies, safety advocates point to National Transportation Safety Board data showing a troubling number of incidents under investigation. 

McCormick connects these dots directly to the president's actions, from the dissolution of key safety committees to the installation of unqualified political loyalists at the highest levels of the Transportation Department.

“When a commercial airliner has to dive to avoid a military bomber because of a failure of basic communication, that is a profound failure of governance,” McCormick said. “When the system is so strained that controllers walk off the job in protest, as they did in Newark, we are not witnessing isolated incidents. We are witnessing a system in collapse.”

The question she poses echoes in the minds of many travelers today: in an America where the skies were once a symbol of safe and efficient travel, who will take responsibility before the next near-miss becomes an unavoidable tragedy? 

For McCormick, the answer is clear, and the responsibility leads directly to the Oval Office.