Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Democrats Kill your Spirit—How Biden, Warren & Buttigieg Destroyed Spirit Air

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Democrats Kill your Spirit—How Biden, Warren & Buttigieg Destroyed Spirit Air · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Center, Ted Kruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
0:04
Speaker 2: Senator as we are doing this show. It was a
0:06
Speaker 2: pretty crazy week for airline fires, especially if you were
0:11
Speaker 2: on Spirit Airlines. This was a crisis that was created
0:15
Speaker 2: by the prior administration. They had been struggling for a
0:20
Speaker 2: while and there was a bailout in essence in the
0:22
Speaker 2: private sector with Jet Blue merger and guests who stopped it. Yeah,
0:26
Speaker 2: the Biden administration and Americans need to know this story.
0:30
Speaker 2: It's really important.
0:32
Speaker 3: Well, it is now an objective fact that Democrats kill
0:37
Speaker 3: your Spirit.
0:38
Speaker 1: That of course.
0:39
Speaker 3: Means Spirit Airlines. As of this week, seventeen thousand employees
0:46
Speaker 3: have lost their jobs. Now, look, Spirit was always an
0:50
Speaker 3: ultra budget airlines. They always had challenges in their business model.
0:56
Speaker 3: Those challenges resulted in for years Spirit losing money and
1:03
Speaker 3: their customer service has been consistently at the very bottom
1:08
Speaker 3: of airlines. All that being said, in twenty twenty four,
1:13
Speaker 3: Spirit had a plan to survive and the plan was
1:16
Speaker 3: to merge with Jet Blue. Jet Blue is another budget airline,
1:20
Speaker 3: but unlike Spirit, jet Blue actually manages to provide pretty
1:25
Speaker 3: decent customer service, and both Jet Blue and Spirit believed
1:30
Speaker 3: combined they would be a much more effective competitor and
1:34
Speaker 3: able to turn a profit. And in fact, Spirit Airlines
1:39
Speaker 3: believe the only way Spirit could survive is if it
1:44
Speaker 3: merged with Jet Blue. Well that would have happened, except
1:48
Speaker 3: then the Democrats came along to kill it. Elizabeth Warren
1:52
Speaker 3: led the charge saying we must stop Jet Blue and
1:57
Speaker 3: Spirit for merging. Pete Boodhajetge led the charge, Merrick Garland
2:01
Speaker 3: led the charge, and Joe Biden led the charge, and
2:04
Speaker 3: they succeeded in blocking the merger. And now this week's
2:07
Speaker 3: Spirit has gone totally bankrupt, which is what they said
2:10
Speaker 3: would happen if they were not allowed to merge with
2:13
Speaker 3: Jed Blue, and seventeen thousand people have lost their jobs.
2:18
Speaker 3: We're going to break it all down for you on
2:20
Speaker 3: today's pod.
2:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an incredible story. And before we get into that,
2:24
Speaker 2: I want to just talk to you about the International
2:26
Speaker 2: Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the incredible work that they're
2:29
Speaker 2: doing to help people in Israel right now, and so
2:32
Speaker 2: many of you that have gotten involved, number one, thank you,
2:35
Speaker 2: But there's still a lot of work to get done,
2:37
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2:40
Speaker 2: is your moment where you can have a huge impact
2:42
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2:45
Speaker 2: take a moment and I want to talk to you
2:46
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2:48
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2:53
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2:57
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3:00
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3:03
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3:08
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3:12
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3:16
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3:43
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3:51
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3:53
Speaker 1: Friends.
3:54
Speaker 2: I want you to know your gift to God's people
3:56
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4:00
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4:04
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4:14
Speaker 2: Or go to IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org.
4:19
Speaker 2: All right, Senator, So let's get back to the history
4:21
Speaker 2: of Spirit Airlines. There was a very interesting post and
4:25
Speaker 2: it went viral on x and an individual just said
4:29
Speaker 2: Spirit Airlines died tonight the hands of socialist crusader Elizabeth Warren.
4:33
Speaker 2: She must be proud to add another casket to her achievements.
4:36
Speaker 2: Tonight at three am, Spirit turn off the lights. Fourteen
4:39
Speaker 2: thousand jobs directly gone, thirty plus smaller airports loss service.
4:43
Speaker 2: We now know those numbers are way bigger of the
4:46
Speaker 2: number of job losses not just direct but indirect. And
4:49
Speaker 2: to go back and remind the American people, JetBlue offered
4:53
Speaker 2: three point eight billion in cash to buy Spirit in
4:56
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. The shareholders the fly Right Attendant union.
5:01
Speaker 2: Literally everyone involved voted yes. The combined company would have
5:05
Speaker 2: held nine percent of the US market against the Big
5:08
Speaker 2: four that already owned eighty percent. And they were saying, oh,
5:12
Speaker 2: this could create a monopoly. All right, those numbers don't
5:14
Speaker 2: add up to a monopoly. Elizabeth Warren led the charges
5:18
Speaker 2: you mentioned. She said no, She wrote letters, She pressured
5:21
Speaker 2: Mayor Pete Botajeedge, who was then in charge of the
5:23
Speaker 2: Department Transportation, then the Biden Department of Justice suit. A
5:27
Speaker 2: federal judge killed the deal in January of twenty twenty four.
5:30
Speaker 2: Her argument was simple, the merger would cost consumers a
5:33
Speaker 2: billion a year. Will now look at the collateral damage.
5:36
Speaker 2: This is the fault of the left who doesn't understand business,
5:41
Speaker 2: and these socialists like Elizabeth Warren, in my opinion.
5:44
Speaker 1: Well and understood.
5:46
Speaker 3: Spirit Airlines was offered three point eight billion dollars just
5:49
Speaker 3: two years ago.
5:51
Speaker 1: That would have been the difference.
5:52
Speaker 3: It could well have been the difference between surviving and
5:55
Speaker 3: going under. And yet as a result of Elizabeth Warren
6:00
Speaker 3: and Pete Boodh Judge and Joe Biden, Spirit got zero.
6:05
Speaker 1: You look at.
6:05
Speaker 3: Spirit and Jet Blue are two of the smallest players
6:09
Speaker 3: in the entire arena. They're competing against much bigger airlines,
6:14
Speaker 3: and so they were trying to come together to have
6:16
Speaker 3: some scale to be a more effective competitor. When the
6:22
Speaker 3: Biden administration blocked the merger, Elizabeth Warren celebrated. Here's what
6:27
Speaker 3: she tweeted out quote, I've warned for months that a
6:31
Speaker 3: Jet Blue, Spirit Airlines merger would have led to fewer
6:35
Speaker 3: flights and higher fares. The US Department of Transportation was
6:40
Speaker 3: right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway
6:45
Speaker 3: airline consolidation. This is a Biden win for flyers.
6:50
Speaker 4: Now.
6:51
Speaker 3: I got to say that last sentence. She's absolutely accurate.
6:54
Speaker 3: This is a Biden win for flyers. You want to
6:56
Speaker 3: see what a Biden win is. It is seventeen thousand
6:59
Speaker 3: people losing their jobs. It is small communities losing the
7:05
Speaker 3: air travel that was going into and out of those communities,
7:08
Speaker 3: and it is less competition, which means ticket prices will rise. Altogether,
7:14
Speaker 3: it is a disaster for consumers, which is exactly what
7:18
Speaker 3: a Biden win for flyers is. Now, today, I guess
7:23
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren realizes that there's a problem, that this is
7:27
Speaker 3: not not good. So today she's tweeting something different. Now
7:33
Speaker 3: she is tweeting the big four airlines American, Delta, Southwest,
7:39
Speaker 3: United controls seventy five percent of the US market. Fewer
7:44
Speaker 3: choices equals higher prices for you. Now once again, her
7:48
Speaker 3: last sentence is exactly You're exactly right. Fewer choices equals
7:53
Speaker 3: higher prices for you. And guess what, Elizabeth Warren just
7:56
Speaker 3: gave you. Fewer choices, which means higher is for you.
8:01
Speaker 3: This is misguided government control, and sadly it has real consequences.
8:08
Speaker 2: You know, it was going viral, the last Spirit Airline
8:11
Speaker 2: flight to be actually carrying passengers, and the official sign
8:15
Speaker 2: if it came into Texas and the DFW airport, the
8:19
Speaker 2: flight attendants or airtrip control, I should say, they even said, Hey,
8:24
Speaker 2: we wish you guys luck, you know, after an airline
8:27
Speaker 2: that's been around for quite some time, and you know,
8:29
Speaker 2: we feel for you guys. It's not just the seventeen
8:32
Speaker 2: thousand jobs that you mentioned directly. That was just the
8:37
Speaker 2: people in Spirit uniforms. The catering people they're gone, the
8:41
Speaker 2: fuel guys they've lost their job. The baggage crews for
8:44
Speaker 2: those airplanes they're gone. The gate agents they're gone. The airport,
8:49
Speaker 2: coffee shops, the hotels, the rental cars, and seventy series
8:53
Speaker 2: cities at Spirit Flutuo. That's going to change every airline
8:56
Speaker 2: job they say carries three more on its back, so
9:01
Speaker 2: in infrastructure because of that one job in the industry.
9:04
Speaker 2: So you're now talking about an honest number of about
9:08
Speaker 2: forty plus thousand people that are either out of work
9:11
Speaker 2: or are basically losing major income, all because Elizabeth Warren's
9:17
Speaker 2: insane crusade against you know this quote consolidation when she
9:23
Speaker 2: just doesn't understand business or the math. Spirit Not only
9:27
Speaker 2: now you talk about the other fallout center, and that
9:30
Speaker 2: is Spirit abandoned ninety routes during the death spiral. Fars
9:35
Speaker 2: on those routes went up about fifteen percent on average.
9:38
Speaker 2: Oakland to Newark, for example, went from one thirty five
9:41
Speaker 2: to two eighty eight. Fort Myers of San Juan went
9:44
Speaker 2: from ninety two dollars to two hundred nineteen. Kansas City
9:47
Speaker 2: to New York went up sixty six percent. So now
9:51
Speaker 2: every consumer out there is probably going to be paying
9:54
Speaker 2: a lot more money because of her not understanding.
9:56
Speaker 3: Business well and Elizabeth Warren spin and we're seeing this
10:01
Speaker 3: repeated by a lot of the corporate media. She tweeted
10:05
Speaker 3: out this week quote spiking fuel prices from Trump's war
10:10
Speaker 3: was the nail in the coffin for twice bankrupted Spirit
10:13
Speaker 3: Airline and their whole spin on this as well, it's
10:17
Speaker 3: entirely because of fuel prices and that's because of Trump.
10:19
Speaker 3: And look understand their talking point as always everything bad
10:23
Speaker 3: is because of Trump. It is true that fuel cut
10:26
Speaker 3: prices have gone up during this military conflict with Iran,
10:29
Speaker 3: a military conflict that I believe is making America substantially safer.
10:35
Speaker 1: Fuel prices go up.
10:36
Speaker 3: They go down. That is part of running an airline.
10:38
Speaker 3: Every other airline is dealing with fuel prices going up.
10:42
Speaker 3: And ask yourself one question, would Spirit be better or
10:48
Speaker 3: worse dealing with higher fuel prices if it had merged
10:53
Speaker 3: with Jet Blue and had an additional.
10:55
Speaker 1: Three point eight billion dollars?
10:56
Speaker 3: Now, that is a question that answers itself is obvious. Now, Look,
11:02
Speaker 3: is it possible that even if Spirit and Jet Blue
11:06
Speaker 3: had merged that they might ultimately not survive. Sure, that's possible,
11:11
Speaker 3: but the odds of the combined company surviving are much
11:15
Speaker 3: much higher. And now, because Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden,
11:21
Speaker 3: Pete Budhajeedge jumped in and killed it. Spirit is gone
11:25
Speaker 3: and I want you to listen to Pete Boodajedge cheering
11:30
Speaker 3: on their efforts to block this merger.
11:31
Speaker 1: Give a listen.
11:33
Speaker 4: Our department, the Department of Transportation, has generally not gotten
11:37
Speaker 4: involved in these merger cases, but that's changing today. It
11:42
Speaker 4: is so important to make sure that passengers have choices,
11:46
Speaker 4: that they have access to low fares, that they have
11:49
Speaker 4: access to competition, and yet we've seen less and less
11:52
Speaker 4: and less of that competition over the years. We are
11:55
Speaker 4: taking a step that again is unusual in terms of
11:59
Speaker 4: recent years, but we think is the right thing to do,
12:01
Speaker 4: supporting the DOJ's lawsuit and independently using our own authorities
12:07
Speaker 4: which are a little bit different from the DOJ, starting
12:10
Speaker 4: our own investigation and taking other actions.
12:13
Speaker 2: This is again goes back to when you don't understand business,
12:16
Speaker 2: and you don't understand what's happening in the marketplace, you
12:21
Speaker 2: go and you look. There was studies that were done
12:24
Speaker 2: talking about cheap carriers and markets drop fares by an
12:28
Speaker 2: average of twenty one percent across the board. Southwest, by
12:31
Speaker 2: the Way did this in the nineties. They saved Americans
12:34
Speaker 2: about sixty eight billion over twenty years in fares, and
12:38
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren killed it and said, oh, I'm giving you
12:42
Speaker 2: more choice. Well, do we have more or less choice today?
12:44
Speaker 2: Are we closer further away from a monopoly? Senator, you
12:48
Speaker 2: already answered those two questions well.
12:51
Speaker 3: Pete Budajedge further tweeted in twenty twenty three, quote, Americans
12:55
Speaker 3: deserve robust competition and affordable airfares, you asked. Department of
12:59
Speaker 3: Transfer Tation supports DOJ's antifrust lawsuit, and we plan to
13:03
Speaker 3: deny the Jet Blue Spirit request for an exemption on
13:06
Speaker 3: their merger deal. We will continue with our own investigation
13:10
Speaker 3: while supporting DOJ's work. Now that policy obviously failed. It
13:16
Speaker 3: was a disaster. And by the way, if you're not
13:19
Speaker 3: inclined to believe me on this, maybe you would believe
13:23
Speaker 3: Near Attendon. So who was near attended Near attended as
13:26
Speaker 3: a Democrat, she was the head of the Domestic Policy
13:29
Speaker 3: Council in the Biden White House. So she is a
13:32
Speaker 3: senior policy person in the Biden White House. Here's what
13:35
Speaker 3: she tweeted this week. Quote, given the news today that
13:40
Speaker 3: Spirit Airlines is shuddering and thousands of people are losing
13:44
Speaker 3: their jobs. I think we should honestly assess whether the
13:48
Speaker 3: Garland DOJ stopping the Jet Blue.
13:51
Speaker 1: Merger with Spirit Airlines was the right call.
13:55
Speaker 3: Perhaps it was, but any analysis must consider as part
13:58
Speaker 3: of the equation the loss to so many families to decide.
14:04
Speaker 1: Look to her credit.
14:08
Speaker 3: That is now I think she got some real pushback
14:11
Speaker 3: as Democrats scream no, no, no, no reason allowed, because
14:15
Speaker 3: then she put a second comment. Lord, of course Trump's
14:18
Speaker 3: war was the Spirit Airlines killer. Here, I'm simply asking
14:22
Speaker 3: if we should assess all the evidence. I'm expecting the
14:25
Speaker 3: third tweet to be I have now been located to
14:27
Speaker 3: witness protection because no Democrat is allowed to dissent on anything,
14:33
Speaker 3: but good for her for a moment. She hasn't as
14:35
Speaker 3: of right now, deleted the tweet. It is kind of amusing.
14:42
Speaker 3: The first one was sent at five point fifty four am,
14:45
Speaker 3: and then the clarification, Oh no, no, no, it wasn't US,
14:48
Speaker 3: it was Trump. It was Trump was at ten thirty
14:50
Speaker 3: nine am. Yeah.
14:51
Speaker 2: That's actually got a lot of heat from people, right.
14:53
Speaker 1: Oh, enormous heat.
14:55
Speaker 3: You're not allowed to say anything remotely, honest, remotely re Instead,
15:02
Speaker 3: it is a partisan line. Is the only thing that
15:06
Speaker 3: that is acceptable.
15:08
Speaker 2: You you go back to when this merger and it
15:11
Speaker 2: was it was an issue, right and and they decide
15:14
Speaker 2: to flex their muscles. I'm still trying to understand exactly
15:19
Speaker 2: why they thought this was a good idea. Who was
15:25
Speaker 2: behind it? That's the other question I have. Or or
15:28
Speaker 2: is it just that they genuinely have no idea how
15:31
Speaker 2: the private sector works? Or is this just socialism and
15:34
Speaker 2: the way that they do socialism where they're just like, oh,
15:37
Speaker 2: we get involved in anything to flex our muscles and
15:39
Speaker 2: show you our power because we think government is better
15:42
Speaker 2: than everybody else.
15:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:44
Speaker 3: Look, I think it's they have very little understanding basic
15:47
Speaker 3: economics and they believe government power is always the right answer.
15:53
Speaker 3: While Spirit and Jet Blue were litigating to merge, here's
15:56
Speaker 3: what they said. They said, quote, we continue to believe
15:59
Speaker 3: that our combination is the best opportunity to increase much
16:02
Speaker 3: needed competition and choice by bringing low fares and great
16:06
Speaker 3: service to more customers in more markets, while enhancing our
16:10
Speaker 3: ability to compete with the dominant US carriers. And look,
16:13
Speaker 3: often when you have a couple of giant providers. By
16:17
Speaker 3: the way, there was chatter last month about United and
16:21
Speaker 3: American merging. I think that would be terrible. Those are
16:24
Speaker 3: both major and dominant providers, and they quickly abandoned that.
16:29
Speaker 3: American put out a public statement saying we're not interested
16:32
Speaker 3: in merging with United. That merger would unquestionably have run
16:37
Speaker 3: into real antitrust concerns, because when you have dominant market
16:41
Speaker 3: players combining, that's what the antitrust laws are designed for.
16:46
Speaker 3: In this instance, you had two relatively small players in
16:52
Speaker 3: the most vulnerable position wanting to join forces so that
16:56
Speaker 3: they could be more effective competitors against the big guys.
17:00
Speaker 3: The anti trust law is actually designed to allow that
17:04
Speaker 3: and even encourage that. And yet the federal judge and
17:08
Speaker 3: in Boston, Massachusetts, who entered the order blocking the merger,
17:13
Speaker 3: wrote the following quote. While it is understandable that JetBlue
17:17
Speaker 3: seeks inorganic growth through acquisition of aircraft that would eliminate
17:21
Speaker 3: one of its primary competitors, the proposed acquisition, in this
17:25
Speaker 3: court's attempt to predict the future in murky times, does
17:29
Speaker 3: violence to the core principle of antitrust law to protect
17:33
Speaker 3: the United States's markets and its market participants from anti
17:38
Speaker 3: competitive harm. Now let me stop right there and We're
17:40
Speaker 3: going to get a little bit wonky on two things.
17:43
Speaker 3: Number One, what the court said, which was repeating what
17:46
Speaker 3: the Biden DOJ had said to it is flat out
17:50
Speaker 3: wrong as to the purpose of anti trust law, anti
17:54
Speaker 3: trust law is not designed to protect market participants from
17:59
Speaker 3: anti can competitive harm. It is designed to protect consumers.
18:04
Speaker 3: That is a very different concept. So when democrats are
18:09
Speaker 3: in charge, they want to use government to protect one
18:14
Speaker 3: competitor from another. The purpose of the antitrust laws is
18:19
Speaker 3: to protect consumers, and the way you do that is
18:23
Speaker 3: by having robust competition. In this instance, JetBlue and Spirit
18:29
Speaker 3: combined would have been a much more effective competitor than
18:33
Speaker 3: the two splintered apart. And the anti trust analysis typically
18:38
Speaker 3: looks at one of the central questions is what percentage
18:42
Speaker 3: of the relevant market are the players that are seeking
18:45
Speaker 3: to merge. The way that DOJ managed to hoodwink the
18:50
Speaker 3: court into blocking the merger is they didn't define the
18:54
Speaker 3: market as commercial air travel like in any normal world,
18:59
Speaker 3: That's what you would think. If I want to fly
19:01
Speaker 3: from Houston and New York, my market is who can
19:04
Speaker 3: I go buy a ticket from that flies me there.
19:07
Speaker 3: That would be a normal way to assess it. So
19:09
Speaker 3: then you would look at Jet Blue and Spirit and
19:11
Speaker 3: you would compare them to American Delta, United Southwest, and
19:16
Speaker 3: then that would be the market. And looking at it
19:18
Speaker 3: that way, jet Blue and Spirit are really small players
19:21
Speaker 3: in that. Well, what doj argut is no, no, no. The
19:25
Speaker 3: argument is not airline travel. The market is not airline travel.
19:29
Speaker 3: The market is ultra budget airline travel. So it basically
19:35
Speaker 3: defined the market as Jet Blue and Spirit, and that
19:39
Speaker 3: it's said a well, gosh that if these two combine
19:42
Speaker 3: there'd be no competition in the market. That is an
19:46
Speaker 3: idiotic way to look at it. They literally hurt the
19:50
Speaker 3: lowest cost competitors, and it is the presence of low
19:54
Speaker 3: cost competitors and competitors fighting with each other that drives
19:58
Speaker 3: down prices. And the consequence is they left the lowest
20:04
Speaker 3: cost provider completely vulnerable. And by the way, this was
20:08
Speaker 3: not a mystery. Both Spirit and Jet Blue were telling
20:11
Speaker 3: them this over and over and over again. Do you
20:15
Speaker 3: know what the Biden administration said when the merger was blocked?
20:21
Speaker 2: What'd they say?
20:22
Speaker 3: Attorney General Merrick Garland said the statement that the ruling
20:25
Speaker 3: quote is a victory for tens of millions of travelers,
20:29
Speaker 3: who would have faced higher fares and fewer choices had
20:32
Speaker 3: the proposed merger between Jet Blue and Spirit been allowed
20:35
Speaker 3: to go forward. Garland added that DOJ QUOTE will continue
20:40
Speaker 3: to vigorously enforce the nation's antitrust laws to protect American consumers.
20:45
Speaker 3: Now every word of that is gobbledegook and wrong, and
20:51
Speaker 3: right now, seventeen thousand workers have lost their job and
20:57
Speaker 3: American consumers are facing fewer choices and higher prices.
21:02
Speaker 2: Love, generosity, and compassion. We say those words all the time,
21:06
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21:09
Speaker 1: But here's the truth.
21:10
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21:22
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Speaker 2: Compassion Die that's Compassion dot com. Let's talk about another
22:04
Speaker 2: aspect of this, and it was the there was a
22:07
Speaker 2: lot of you know, fodder online and there was a
22:10
Speaker 2: lot of media reports that well, maybe America would would
22:13
Speaker 2: give a government would give a bailout, we'd own you know,
22:16
Speaker 2: eighty ninety percent of the company, whatever the number was.
22:18
Speaker 2: Ultimately that did not happen. Explain, I hear bailout and
22:23
Speaker 2: I always get real cringey. We've had some that have
22:25
Speaker 2: been really good where we've gotten our money back as taxpayers,
22:29
Speaker 2: but in this scenario, there's many that say, you know what,
22:32
Speaker 2: it makes me really nervous. It did not happen. But
22:36
Speaker 2: can you explain how the government getting involved with that
22:38
Speaker 2: and and how that works and who's making that decision
22:42
Speaker 2: of saying yes or no.
22:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:44
Speaker 3: So, this last week there was considerable discussion about the
22:48
Speaker 3: Trump administration potentially bailing out Spirit Airlines. And the bailout
22:53
Speaker 3: that was being discussed was the federal government would give
22:56
Speaker 3: Spirit Airlines five hundred million dollars and an exchange for that,
23:00
Speaker 3: the federal government would own ninety percent of the airline.
23:04
Speaker 3: And there were differences of opinions within the administration on that.
23:10
Speaker 3: So the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy was vocally arguing
23:13
Speaker 3: against that, saying that's a bad idea. Howard Lutnik, the
23:17
Speaker 3: Secretary of Commerce, was the one who was advocating this idea.
23:22
Speaker 3: I publicly came out against it. I came out loudly.
23:26
Speaker 3: I sent a tweet a little over a week ago
23:28
Speaker 3: that said the following quote, this is an absolutely terrible idea.
23:36
Speaker 3: The TARP corporate bailouts were a huge mistake, and the
23:41
Speaker 3: government doesn't know a damn thing about running a failed
23:46
Speaker 3: budget airline that the Biden administration killed. Now, when I
23:51
Speaker 3: said that, I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee,
23:54
Speaker 3: which has jurisdiction over re aviation. When I came out
23:58
Speaker 3: against it, that got quite a bit of media, and
24:00
Speaker 3: it prompted a number of other members of Congress spoke
24:04
Speaker 3: out against it after I did so. I will tell you, Ben,
24:10
Speaker 3: that was my public statement. I also went so last
24:13
Speaker 3: week I had dinner with Howard Ludnik. Howard is a friend.
24:18
Speaker 3: He and I worked together very very closely. He's the
24:20
Speaker 3: Secretary of Commerce, and the Commerce Committee is is the
24:25
Speaker 3: Senate committee that has jurisdiction over the Commerce Department. So
24:28
Speaker 3: Howard and I had dinner last week, and a good
24:32
Speaker 3: chunk of the dinner was spent discussing the potential Spirit bailout.
24:38
Speaker 3: And I will tell you one on one with Howard.
24:41
Speaker 3: It was just the two of us having dinner. I
24:43
Speaker 3: leaned in really hard and said, this is an absolutely
24:47
Speaker 3: horrible idea. Corporate bailouts are a bad, bad strategy. They
24:53
Speaker 3: were a bad strategy when we did TARP. They're a
24:55
Speaker 3: bad strategy when you had the government coming in and
24:58
Speaker 3: bailing out giant corporation. But they're particularly bad when the
25:03
Speaker 3: government doesn't know a damn thing about the business. And
25:06
Speaker 3: so if we'd ended up giving five hundred million dollars
25:10
Speaker 3: to Spirit and having the federal government own ninety percent
25:14
Speaker 3: of Spirit Number one, I believe we would have lost
25:17
Speaker 3: our money. In fact, I had said, somewhat cynically, a
25:19
Speaker 3: better idea was simply to put five hundred million dollars
25:22
Speaker 3: in a pile on the floor, pour gasoline on it,
25:24
Speaker 3: and light it, because then at least you'd get some warmth.
25:28
Speaker 3: You could like roast marshmallows by it. That would get
25:30
Speaker 3: something positive and beneficial from it. But fundamentally, who in
25:36
Speaker 3: their right mind thinks the federal government knows anything about
25:41
Speaker 3: how you run an airline? How do you set pilot schedules,
25:44
Speaker 3: how do you run baggage handling? How do you make
25:47
Speaker 3: sure somebody's suitcase that's headed to Pittsburgh doesn't end up
25:51
Speaker 3: in Milwaukee?
25:53
Speaker 1: How do you negotiate with.
25:55
Speaker 3: Pilots unions, with with flight attendant unions, how do you
25:58
Speaker 3: ensure safety?
25:59
Speaker 1: And all of that.
26:01
Speaker 3: The federal government doesn't know a blooming thing about it,
26:05
Speaker 3: And and it is a really dangerous road. Look, there
26:11
Speaker 3: are some voices and some voices within the administration that
26:16
Speaker 3: are pretty excited about the federal government taking ownership shares
26:20
Speaker 3: in lots and lots of companies. I think that is
26:24
Speaker 3: a really bad idea. And and and Ben, I'm going
26:28
Speaker 3: to harken back to when I was a kid, when
26:31
Speaker 3: I was in high school, and and you may recall
26:34
Speaker 3: I was I was part of a group in Houston
26:36
Speaker 3: that that that was called the Constitutional Corroborators, And it
26:40
Speaker 3: was started by this nonprofit in Houston called the Free
26:42
Speaker 3: Enterprise Education Center. And as high school kids, we studied
26:47
Speaker 3: free market economics. We read Milton Friedman and Hayek and
26:50
Speaker 3: Bastiat and von Mises, and we studied the Constitution and
26:54
Speaker 3: we ended up touring around Texas speaking on the Constitution.
26:59
Speaker 3: And it was five high school students. We would set
27:02
Speaker 3: up easels and say we'd go to a Rotary club
27:05
Speaker 3: or a Kawanas club or Alliance club, and folks would
27:08
Speaker 3: be sitting there having lunch, and the five high school
27:11
Speaker 3: students would set up easels and we would write from
27:15
Speaker 3: memory the entire Constitution in shortened demonic form, and we
27:22
Speaker 3: would write a definition of socialism, which is government ownership
27:28
Speaker 3: or control of the means of distribution or production. And
27:32
Speaker 3: the reason we wrote this, and this is what I
27:33
Speaker 3: was doing at fourteen fifteen years old, is if you
27:37
Speaker 3: don't know what it is, you can't identify it when
27:40
Speaker 3: you have it. Well, the folks who are arguing the
27:43
Speaker 3: federal government should own or control the means of production
27:48
Speaker 3: and distribution and economy are directly arguing we should adopt
27:53
Speaker 3: socialism for our economy.
27:55
Speaker 1: That is a really, really bad answer.
27:59
Speaker 3: And I think a budget airline made it obvious to
28:04
Speaker 3: most observers. Look, there are limited circumstances, so, for example,
28:08
Speaker 3: in national security, areas where you're dealing with critical minerals
28:12
Speaker 3: and rare earth minerals, where it makes sense to have
28:15
Speaker 3: some government control because you because you need to be
28:18
Speaker 3: able to ensure that we can defend our nation from
28:21
Speaker 3: national security threats. But outside that very limited category, it
28:27
Speaker 3: is a really dangerous slippery slope to start having the
28:31
Speaker 3: government be a shareholder, and especially be the biggest shareholder
28:35
Speaker 3: in major companies. That's how you lose the competitiveness. How
28:40
Speaker 3: that's how you lose the incredible success of the American
28:43
Speaker 3: for enterprise system.
28:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is there. You know, when things like
28:47
Speaker 2: this happen, I always go back to their real people
28:50
Speaker 2: that are affected by it, and there's always, you know,
28:53
Speaker 2: people that are out without a job today. There's also
28:56
Speaker 2: stories that come out of it that I think are amazing.
28:58
Speaker 2: The New York Post had this story, and I think
29:01
Speaker 2: it's a great way to just wrap this up in
29:03
Speaker 2: a human way. It said, Spirit Airlines pilot give an
29:06
Speaker 2: emotional sendoff from rival airline after his retirement flight, which
29:11
Speaker 2: is a huge deal when you're a pilot was cut
29:13
Speaker 2: amid the shutdown. The Spirit Airline pilot received a hero
29:17
Speaker 2: sendoff with the help of another Airline Captain John Jackson
29:23
Speaker 2: was scheduled to fly one last time for Spirit into
29:26
Speaker 2: Baltimore Washington International on Saturday. When they ceased operations and
29:30
Speaker 2: went out of business in the dead of the night.
29:33
Speaker 2: Jackson was left stranded by the permanent shutdown. He hitched
29:37
Speaker 2: a ride with Southwest Airlines in Fort Lauderdale. He rode
29:41
Speaker 2: alongside his son, who was a first officer. And this
29:45
Speaker 2: was the coolest part. It went online viral. They basically
29:50
Speaker 2: Southwest gave him the send off that he deserved. Southwest
29:54
Speaker 2: put it up on their social media. It went to
29:57
Speaker 2: well over one hundred thousand people that respond to it
30:00
Speaker 2: very quickly. They showed him in the cockpit with his son.
30:04
Speaker 2: It was awesome, and I just got to say, even
30:07
Speaker 2: when things like this happen, I do love seeing the
30:10
Speaker 2: hearts of Americans and people that do this and gave
30:14
Speaker 2: him a send off. The Southwest Airlines carry him. They
30:17
Speaker 2: went under the Water Canyon salute after arriving at BWI.
30:21
Speaker 2: I tell you it's awesome when you see things like
30:24
Speaker 2: that happen. So to that retiring pilot he didn't get
30:28
Speaker 2: his final flight job, well done to Southwest and thanks
30:31
Speaker 2: for making that Guy's Day special.
30:32
Speaker 1: Well, good for Southwest that that was the right thing
30:35
Speaker 1: to do.
30:35
Speaker 3: And I'll say Southwest is a great Texas company. American
30:39
Speaker 3: Airlines was also a great Texas company. You know, Texas
30:42
Speaker 3: is is really a critical hub for aviation. And I'll
30:46
Speaker 3: say I fly just about every airline all the time.
30:50
Speaker 3: I jokingly refer to Southwest as the company plane. Yet
30:54
Speaker 3: you know, people ask sometimes they assume senators fly private
30:57
Speaker 3: jets all around, and the vast majority of the time.
31:01
Speaker 1: You fly commercial and you fly coach.
31:03
Speaker 3: And so I tell people, I say, oh, yeah, I've
31:05
Speaker 3: got a private jet. It's a seven thirty seven, and
31:09
Speaker 3: it's with one hundred and thirty five of my closest
31:11
Speaker 3: friends on Southwest. That's my private jet. But you know,
31:14
Speaker 3: Southwest I think does a great job. And and that
31:18
Speaker 3: was a very class move. I'm glad they honored the
31:21
Speaker 3: spirit pilot who was retiring. I'm sorry that so many
31:24
Speaker 3: other pilots are now out of a job. I think
31:27
Speaker 3: many of them will end up getting hired by other airlines.
31:29
Speaker 3: But it's still an awful lot of pain and hurt
31:34
Speaker 3: from the disastrous Biden economic policies.
31:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real life. This is going to affect people,
31:40
Speaker 2: and I hope you will pay attention to exactly what
31:42
Speaker 2: brought this to become a reality and the disaster it
31:45
Speaker 2: ended up being. Don't forget we do this show Monday,
31:48
Speaker 2: Wednesday Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download button wherever
31:52
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts, and make sure you also foll
31:55
Speaker 2: us on YouTube as well the Center. I will see
31:57
Speaker 2: you back here on Wednesday morning.
32:00
Speaker 3: Ye