Key facts
- Koh said Trump blocked more than $1 trillion in Biden-era infrastructure funding and FAA money.
- Trump posted on Truth Social that Congress should give the FAA money "FAST!"
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked for $50 billion, noting Trump's prior $30 billion request.
- The FAA issued a ground stop on the afternoon of November 13, 2026.
- Biden's November 2021 law allocated $25 billion to the FAA and $550 billion in new spending over five years.
- Trump signed an executive order pausing disbursement of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds.
Rep.-elect Dan Koh (D-Mass.) said on November 15, 2026 that President Trump was blocking more than $1 trillion in Biden-era infrastructure funding and money for the Federal Aviation Administration, citing the nationwide ground stop for all US flights two days earlier. Koh made the remarks on MS NOW's "The Weekend" during a discussion of Trump's Truth Social post that morning.
Trump wrote that the Biden administration had made "an old and broken system" at the FAA "worse than when they began" and called on Congress "to give the money, FAST!" Koh called that account "revisionist history" and said Biden had secured funding for the FAA and more than a trillion dollars in infrastructure money, much of which he said Trump had reversed.
Koh said mayors and city council members expecting the funding "don't even know if they're going to get any more because the administration has not even gotten back to them on the status." He said he would "absolutely" approve more FAA funding "if it helps."
The FAA issued a ground stop on the afternoon of November 13, 2026. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked for $50 billion, noting Trump's prior request for $30 billion.
Biden signed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in November 2021 that allocated $25 billion to the FAA for airports and traffic control towers, among other updates. It contained $550 billion in new federal spending over five years for roads, bridges and broadband. Trump signed an executive order days after returning to the White House pausing disbursement of funds appropriated through the law.