Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth suggested during a hearing Wednesday that the Trump administration was playing politics with the aviation system during the shutdown to force an agreement to reopen the government.

Duckworth, of Illinois, zeroed in on why the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy never shared the safety data they relied upon when they decided to order airlines to cut some of their flights at 40 busy airports near the end of the shutdown. She also questioned why President Donald Trump didn't just find a way to pay air traffic controllers the way he did for the military, although the government relied on help from a private donor to pay soldiers.

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