“We live in a fascist state”: American Airlines flight carrying 4 U.S. reps to vote on shutdown makes emergency landing over “disruptive” passenger

An American Airlines flight carrying four members of Congress was forced to make an unscheduled landing to remove a woman accused of being “disruptive.”

Anti-Trump passenger disrupts flight

Video of the incident spread across X on Tuesday after Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona reported that his flight had been diverted to remove the woman before continuing to D.C. The exact nature of the disruption is murky, but footage captured by another passenger offers some clues.

“Flying to DC rn to vote no on CR that fails to lower health care costs,” Stanton wrote in his X post. “@RepEliCrane, @RepAndyBiggsAZ, & @RepGosar all on this flight. We’re making emergency stop in Kansas City to remove disruptive passenger. None of my colleagues is the disruptor. Freedom Caucus losing its mojo.”

U.S. representatives voted on a temporary budget resolution on Wednesday that would reopen the government for a couple of months. The long stalemate broke after eight Democratic senators got together to offer Republicans a deal that did not include guaranteed funding for healthcare subsidies.

Many on the left raged against this breaking of ranks and promises following a Democratic sweep in this year’s off-season elections. Whether this had anything to do with the passenger’s outburst remains unclear, but she did have a tote bag reading “F*ck Trump” and strong opinions about America.

Another passenger, Adam Burtner, recorded the woman as police escorted her off the flight and replied to Stanton’s post with the footage. As she passes by his seat, she can be heard apologizing before calling American the other F-word.

“Sorry folks,” she said. “We live in a fascist state.”

According to Burtner, she also made a claim about what started the disruption in the first place.

“Since there is some confusion on what she said, it’s as follows: ‘I took a picture of someone and they didn’t want me to tweet it,’” he wrote. “(Picture of a congressman aboard the flight.)”

“Another liberal white woman”

As with the CR vote, reactions to this video largely fell on party lines. X being what it is these days, there were plenty of right-wing users eager to slam her for getting political in the air. Interestingly, many of them brought up her apparent race.

“Another liberal white woman who never left the toddler stage of development,” said @ForzaJuve2100.

“Old white women are so easy to dupe,” wrote @tonchita25. “She should learn what a Facist [sic] State really looks like.”

Meanwhile, the liberals in the chat praised her for presumably standing up for live-saving healthcare.

“I wish I had big enough balls to say what I want to say to my reps like she did!” said @Jimbob1081718. “If we screamed as loud as she did we would not be where we are now.”

“She’s right!” declared @cshea32.