During a portion of an interview aired on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” President Donald Trump said that he isn’t worried that his criticism of air traffic controllers who haven’t worked during the government shutdown because “we don’t have much of a deficit. And we have a lot of people who want the job.” And said he’s not sure where the money for his proposed $10,000 bonus for those who did show up will come from, and “I’ll get it from some place.”
Host Laura Ingraham asked, [relevant exchange begins around 3:40] “You put out a Truth Social post earlier today where you blasted the air traffic controllers who had not shown up for work and offered, potentially, a bonus of $10,000 for those who have worked despite the shutdown. Are you worried that, given the fact that we have a deficit of air traffic control controllers still — I know we’re trying to change that — that that might be a difficult position?”
Trump cut in to respond, “No, we don’t have much of a deficit. And we have a lot of people who want the job. I was not happy when I saw all these people, oh, we have to — look, life is not so easy for anybody. Our country has never done better. We should not have had people leaving their jobs. And what I basically did is say the ones that stayed — which were — there were a lot of them, I’m sending them a $10,000 bonus.”
Ingraham interjected, “Where’s that money coming from?”
Trump answered, “I don’t know. I’ll get it from some place. I’ll get it from — I always get the money from some place, regardless. It doesn’t matter. We did a lot of — I do a lot of bonuses for people, because it’s really something that, it’s like the American way, when you think about it.”
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