here and how speaker Mike Johnson is proving he is actually really good at one thing kicking that can down the road Congress now has another week to avoid a partial government shut down but none of this is normal and we cannot say that enough if Congress was actually functioning like it should this would have been a done deal back in September so joining us now to discuss this and all of the things happening with the government is transportation secretary Pete Budaj secretary Budaj welcome to th
e program you are still in Washington DC your colleagues on Capitol Hill most of them have gone home there was a chance they were going to be here this weekend figuring out if they could continue to fund the government theyve kicked the can down the road they bought themselves about a week can you just give us a sense from your Vantage Point of what is at stake with the government operating this way with Congressional Republicans continuing to sort of push the can push the can not really agree t
o a permanent solution well let me give you one example that comes from just one part of one Department uh the fa A's air traffic organization within the Department of Transportation think about what it takes every day 24x7 by 365 to make sure that 16 million flights a year get to where they are going safely and then think about the effect it has on those operations to be now on our fourth maybe fifth depending how you count time this fiscal year alone figuring out whether we're bracing for a sh
utdown you know one thing it feels like everybody that I talk to on Capitol Hill agrees on Republicans and Democrats is we need more air traffic controllers and you know what happens during a shutdown on day one we have to shut down the academy that trains them which will stop us in our tracks at a moment when we are finally after 20 or 30 years of decline finally seeing the number of controllers we have go up meanwhile the controllers who would be required to continue going to work in the tower
s would not be getting paid and I don't know about you but I want the controller who is controlling my flight to have nothing else distracting them uh but the ability to do their job they're going to keep doing their job their Pros but they shouldn't even have to worry about this and neither should leaders in any of the federal agencies responsible for so many vital things from food inspections to air traffic control the last thing they should be wondering about when they get up in the morning i
s do we have a budget do I have a paycheck Mr secretary I I want talk about budgets um the the the interesting news about the Biden Administration is the amount of work that's gone into changing the game for the states around the country whether it was infrastructure whether it was uh on dealing with uh the slowdown in the economy the administrations laid out $9.9 billion in public transportation funding for the states the funding is there to help communities maintain and operate trains buses fa
iries upgrades uh their stations I in my neighborhood the new carolon station thank you very much Mr secretary very much appreciate it um because that station was going to close down a few years ago and the Biden administration because Joe Biden and I used to ride the train together we appreciate trains and what that means how do you cuz you are a consument um not just Advocate but Storyteller of what this Administration has done how come that's just hasn't connected with folks out there who in
polling today says oh Joe Biden hasn't done enough or he's hasn't done anything for us I you know I don't know what this administration's done for the last three years I'm vot voting for Trump right did nothing for you on transportation for 4 years yeah in fact uh the previous administration promised a big Transportation bill I have to admit it's the one time they had me fooled I I actually thought they were going to do it because why wouldn't you and they didn't get it done President Biden did
uh he did it on a bipartisan basis by the way and and and now we're getting these dollars out to States cities communities Transit agencies airports here's the thing when something is uncontroversially and unambiguously good it gets less attention but that just means we have our work cut out for us I'm not accepting that as a reason why these things are going to get less attention I know with a lot of turmoil and a lot of controversy in the world we need to make sure people understand the good t
hat is coming their way because of the president's leadership and because of their work it's why I'm going to be on the road even more you're going to see the president continuing to be on the road uh and look we've also got to work with Partners on the ground to help make sure that their residents connect the dots now obviously you know some Governors are going to be more likely than others to share credit with few others yeah but all of them are taking the money all of them are take the money
and all of that money is helping people get to where they need to be I mean the getting to people where they need to be this is transportation is something that affects everyone's life you know whether you drive whether you ride the bus or you take the train okay whether you ride the plane and um to your point I wrote that down about when something is unambiguously good it gets less attention and so many of the things that I think the Administration has done they do affect people's everyday live
s but they don't necessarily connect the two right uh they see $9.9 billion but they don't connect it to the new Carolton station in DC or the train or the the the transformation coming to trains in North Carolina or uh Illinois another unambiguously good thing that happened this week is the change in policy on wheelchairs yes and Airlines people might well they might realize it now that we say it but uh Airlines were exempt from the Americans with Disability Act when it comes to how accommodati
ons I have never seen anyone on a plane in a wheelchair that's right look I think everybody gets to Aviation is unique and complex and Technical field but it is also the case that so much more could be done to make it possible safe easier and dignified for people who use wheelchairs to travel by air and when they can't when when somebody can't travel by air and one person told us during the process we were developing these rules uh said I was made to feel like a piece of love luggage so I don't
fly anymore every time that happens their world shrinks but also our world shrinks because we miss out on the contributions of that wouldbe passenger wherever they're going whether it's a family wedding or whether it's a board meeting so what we're doing is we are proposing an update to the rules to make it clear for example that if you're traveling with a wheelchair and you hand it to Airline Personnel when you get on the plane uh and they destroy your wheelchair that is a de facto that is a pe
r se violation of the air carrier ACC act and they can be held accountable for that this matters 862 wheelchairs were destroyed last year so it's not like it doesn't happen and and we only have those numbers because we started requiring them to report and that that count might be low uh anybody that that uh that you know with a wheelchair probably has a horror story about flying if they fly at all so uh we're requiring training we're requiring a standard of safe and dignified uh access to aircra
ft because often uh personel are not just handling wheelchairs uh they are physically lifting passengers into their seats they need to be properly train getting this right is uh not just a way to hold Airlines accountable to do the right thing for passengers but it's opening up new possibilities for those passengers and again everybody who would benefit from uh them being there I I met an extraordinary disability advocate in my office just the other day uh her name is Grace Fischer she uh uh she
uh through an illness lost the use of her arms and legs she does extraordinary paintings with her mouth she was able to participate in an award she was being recognized at the Kennedy Center uh this weekend was able to do it flying for her was no simple thing we want to make it easier the go ahead Alicia well I was going to shift gears secretary and ask you to put on your your dad hat for for just a second because we've been following the story of the Alabama Supreme Court's IVF personhood ruli
ng I'm sure you saw this week in the US Senate you had a republican blocking legislation that would have protected IVF and while you built your family through adoption I I don't think we have enough men in this conversation talking about some of the most personal and most important conversations that we have as families about how we build and grow our own families and so I wonder for you as you're watching this all unfold what more you think the federal government can be doing to protect America
n families I think you're right I think everybody who believes in family ought to be speaking out here this is a women's issue it is a family issue it is a father's issue too uh when this kind of ideology and the actions of the last Administration and the Congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court they created and the right to IVF that is stopping men from becoming fathers along with stopping women from becoming mothers and it's preventing something that all of us uh including folks on the
other side of the aisle profess to believe in which is helping people grow their families unfortunately we see far too many voices out there who say their proam on a brochure uh but when it comes down to protecting and supporting families whether it's a family that's trying to grow their family through IVF or one like mine where chaston and I through adoption have our incredible twin son and daughter uh you need to demonstrate uh whether you actually mean it and the fact that you know Senator Du
ckworth put forward a bill uh that that really gave anybody who said oh we're not against IVF a chance to prove it and Senate Republicans are blocking it so look we know where they stand and I think it really tells you something that uh the people with this position refuse to own their own position I think that's an indication that it's uh it's not a very good one as as an adopted child I appreciate uh that uh that effort by you and your husband I I want to uh broaden it out a little bit um uh f
urther in talking about uh what lies ahead uh on a number of fronts that touch on families and communities and and how they make uh their lives and livelihoods happen for example we have uh to the points uh that Alicia raised you have a lot of women out there now having to cross borders uh to seek medical attention uh for themselves and their families um transportation is involved in that the criminalization potentially of that those Crossings what involvement does Department of Transportation h
ave in coordination with the administration in coordination with a broader public policy around making sure that women men families have access they can go from state to state or Community to community uh to get what they need uh is they're making very sometimes difficult Healthcare decisions yeah when the Supreme Court dismantled Row versus way the president directed the entire government to take a whole of government approach make sure every part of his administration was working together to s
upport and defend these rights and yes uh we have a role to play We Are assessing the transportation implications of states and other authorities trying to block people from being able to move to be clear they shouldn't have to in order to access something like IVF or in order to have life-saving medical care you shouldn't have to leave the state that you live in in the United States of America but if there are obstacles being put up we're going to do everything we can uh within the the uh the b
oundaries of the law and according to our authorities to make sure that we support them but again we shouldn't be here in the first place and it's one of the reasons why President Biden has continued to lead uh not just this Administration process but work with Congressional partners because look they're not going to stop uh as far as they've come Alabama Alabama was the first place where IVF was put on the line it's not going to be the last and we're going to see more and more of these Extreme
Measures and by the way there are proposals circulating to uh have some of these extreme things take place at the national level whether we're talking about a national ban on access to abortion or things that would uh uh would stand in the way of uh of IVF I mean look the the the speaker of the house uh I think if he had his way we wouldn't have access to birth control all right oh yes uh that's next giv little red outfits in cream Hoods by the handmaid's tail goodness secretary stick around
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