AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Rescue workers in Washington, D.C., have launched a massive search operation in the Potomac River after an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair late Wednesday, with both aircraft crashing into the water. Officials say there are likely no survivors. At least 30 bodies have been pulled from the river. American Airlines Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members on board and was en route to the D.C.-area Reagan National Airport from Wichita, Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three soldiers on board conducting a training flight. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate with the Federal Aviation Administration.

AMY GOODMAN: The crash comes just days after the head of the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, stepped down. FAA administrators usually serve five-year terms. Trump has not named a replacement. Whitaker announced his planned departure in December after SpaceX CEO, Trump donor, richest man in the world, Elon Musk repeatedly attacked him on social media, tweeting, “He needs to resign.” Musk was responding to $600,000 in FAA fines against SpaceX for safety violations along Florida’s Space Coast.

For more, we’re joined by David Sirota, editor-in-chief of The Lever, which has a new report headlined “Before D.C. Airport Collision, Lawmakers Brushed Off Warnings and Boosted Flights.”

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, David. You know, this story is so horrific. I know the skating community well. My sister-in-law was almost in the Olympics as a skater; her mother, a coach. The horror that many on the flight were young ones who were training for, ultimately, to go into the Olympics, their families waiting at Reagan Airport. The American Airlines flight, taking them back from Wichita training camp after the nationals, collides with an Army Black Hawk helicopter. They say it was a training flight. Can you talk about this piece that you wrote? “Despite midflight near-misses and dire pleas, airline-bankrolled lawmakers recently expanded flight traffic at Washington’s busy airport.” David, I just watched the news briefing. There was the two Virginia senators who objected to this expansion — right? — Tim Kaine, as well as Senator Warner. They didn’t mention that this morning. But if you can talk all about it? Give us some background.

DAVID SIROTA: Sure. So, Washington National Airport is a relatively small airport and one of the busiest, if not the busiest, airport in the country because of how close it is to the center of Washington, D.C., the city there. For years, there has been a debate about whether to expand the amount of flights that can go into Washington Reagan Airport. And over the course of a few decades, there has been a steady increase in the number of slots — that is to say, the amount of traffic — at Washington National Airport, air traffic.

And just a few months ago, as we reported, that debate over how much to expand Washington National hit a fever pitch in Congress. There has been a push by a set of airlines to expand those flights. There are some other airlines that don’t want to expand those flights because they’re already controlling those routes. So there’s sort of an economic battle going on: Who gets to control what routes?

But at the core of it, according to opponents of this, including the senators that you mentioned, there is a very deep safety concern at this airport, because there had been a series of near misses, near collisions at the airport because it is so heavily trafficked. So, a few months ago, put into the FAA authorization bill was some language that further expanded these slots and also the perimeter. That’s the length of the flights that are allowed to come into Washington National. Basically, this is a — the opponents argue this is congresspeople from cities farther away from Washington want more direct flights into Washington because it’s more convenient for them. That’s the opponents’ argument. But again, at the core is the safety question. There have been real safety concerns, again, about these near misses at this particular airport.

And so, a few months ago, that language was slipped into the FAA reauthorization bill, which further expanded the traffic. And it should be said, when it actually came up for a vote in the House in 2023, the House voted it down. So there were some legislative machinations here in which the proponents of this had to slip it into a larger bill, kind of stealthily, to get this expansion passed. And Tim Kaine said he was very concerned about the prospect of collisions at this airport, begging lawmakers to not do this.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you talk, David Sirota, about the significance of the fact that the collision occurred with a Black Hawk helicopter?

DAVID SIROTA: Yeah, sure. Well, look, we don’t know yet exactly what happened and what is at issue here with an alleged training flight of helicopters. But I think it’s worth saying this. If you’ve ever been near or flown into Washington National Airport, you can see it’s some of the most heavily trafficked airspace in the world, including by the military. So, I think what we’re talking about here is whether an airport that is already so stressed, already so at capacity, arguably over capacity, whether it should have been — the air traffic should have been expanded, knowing, again, its also additional special circumstance of being around so much additional air traffic vis-à-vis the military.

AMY GOODMAN: And this whole idea of who is in charge of the military flights, I mean, this is unusual at this airport, as opposed to all others. I was talking to someone who was saying that pilots actually most fear this airport. It’s one of the most dangerous in the country, where you have all these Black Hawk helicopters, and they take military officials and other officials, and then you’ve got all the civilian flights that they keep increasing. How much do they communicate with each other, David?

DAVID SIROTA: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I have seen some reporting saying that the radar wasn’t communicating on this training flight. I’m not sure that’s been substantiated, so I’m not trying to put out misinformation or disinformation. It’s —

AMY GOODMAN: Right. These are just the questions.

DAVID SIROTA: Right. It’s only to say that, again, this particular space, this airspace, has been a known safety hazard for a very long time, and certain airlines, who spend money on lobbying Congress and campaign contributions to key members of Congress, have been pushing to expand the amount of flights into this particular airport.

And again, I just want to say one other thing here. This is a city that is served by a much larger airport farther out of the city, Dulles Airport. And so, the argument has been, “Listen, we should not expand the amount of flights going into Washington Reagan, even though it’s more convenient for passengers when you get off the plane because it’s closer to the city, because we have a larger airport a little bit further away.” So, the argument was — again, this is members of Congress who want, for their convenience, to fly to the closest airport to their office. And the argument was that they were listening to their airline donors. They were listening to their desire for their own convenience, not listening to the multiple safety warnings about this airport.

AMY GOODMAN: And let’s remember, it’s called now Reagan National Airport, used to be National Airport, known for President Reagan. And Present Reagan is known for breaking up the PATCO union, the air traffic controllers’ union, back in the 1980s.

DAVID SIROTA: Absolutely. And there’s a question — there’s been questions. And I don’t know if it’s germane to what happened in this disaster, but there have been questions about air traffic control resources, understaffing, the current staff being essentially overworked. All of these questions have been swirling for years. And so, our job at The Lever, what we do is we look back at the decisions that were made in the lead-up to situations like this. And again, this came — these warnings about expanding the flight traffic at this airport came just a few months ago. I mean, if you go read our story, you will see legislators warning, really dire pleas, to not expand the amount of traffic at this airport.

AMY GOODMAN: David Sirota, you are editor-in-chief of The Lever. You are following what’s happening in Washington extremely closely. To say the least, we’re talking about everything everywhere all at once, with President Trump’s inauguration and the number of executive orders, the number of hearings for his nominees to be in his Cabinet. But you also have a massive amount of pushback. If you can talk about what just took place, the significance, and just your take over the last 10 days, but the significance of cutting trillions of dollars, or so-called pausing them, putting them on hold, and then, because of the outcry — again, this hurting people, veterans, this hurting families in need, heating, housing assistance, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, and suddenly, after the chaos of just a number of hours, the Trump administration almost says, “Sorry, only kidding”?

DAVID SIROTA: Yeah, I mean, this is really unprecedented. And I say that, having worked in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee back during and after 9/11. So, I worked in the committees that dealt with the spending in this country, the budget in this country, and I have never seen — I, back then, and following it since then, have never seen something this brazen.

Now, to be clear, the fight over the spending issue has been something that has happened in the distant past. Richard Nixon tried to so-called impound — that’s holding back money appropriated by Congress. He tried to do that in the ’70s. Congress passed a very explicit law saying, “No, you actually cannot do this.” Ronald Reagan explored doing this. John Roberts, by the way, as we reported, sent a memo, when he was working in the Reagan administration, saying, essentially, the president does not have the power to unilaterally withhold spending authorized by Congress and enshrined in law.

AMY GOODMAN: Now the chief justice of the United States.

DAVID SIROTA: That’s right. And John Roberts would — if this kind of thing comes to the court, the Supreme Court, John Roberts would be weighing in on this.

Look, this is unprecedented. Donald Trump, effectively, tried to unilaterally repeal the federal government by fiat. And he was rejected, essentially, by the American people. He was rejected temporarily by a court. And what I would say is, it is a warning about what is coming, that while the reversal happened very quickly because of the outcry, because of the mass chaos that it sowed, that chaos here is the goal, chaos in service of Trump grabbing more power for himself. If he was successful in this — and he will try it again — what he will essentially do is render the Legislature powerless. He will essentially eliminate the authority of one of the branches of the U.S. government, the checks and balances, the most democratic branch.

And the last thing I’ll say here, Amy, which is really important, especially when it comes to spending, the reason the founders put the power of the purse in the power of the Congress, and specifically in the power of the House, is because the House and Congress are the most small-D democratic parts of the government, the parts of the government that are supposed to be most responsive to the people. So, the president trying to take away that power of the purse is a direct assault on the founding principles that spending decisions are made by the most democratic parts of our government.

AMY GOODMAN: David Sirota, we want to thank you so much for being with us, editor-in-chief of The Lever. He has a new report headlined “Before D.C. Airport Collision, Lawmakers Brushed Off Warnings and Boosted Flights.” We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.

Coming up, we look at Gaza as Hamas releases eight more hostages, Netanyahu planning to come to the White House next week to meet with President Trump, the first foreign leader to meet with President Trump at the White House. Stay with us.