President Donald Trump on Friday revealed his administration was still working on a deal to save Spirit Airlines from shutting down. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Spirit was in talks with the Trump administration to received a $500 million bailout. In return, the U.S. government would receive a “significant stake” in the airline. Spirit, a budget airline, has been hit especially hard by rising fuel costs brought on by the war in Iran. On Friday morning, however, it appeared as though Spirit’s days were numbered. In a follow-up report, WSJ revealed that the deal “fell apart” and Spirit was preparing to shut down. The report continued: But there had been disagreements inside the Trump administration over whether and how to fund the bailout. And not all Spirit bondholders were on board with that deal, the people said. Meanwhile, the airline is facing relentless cost pressure from higher fuel prices. Absent the government bailout, Spirit is running out of cash, so now the airline is moving forward with plans to liquidate its aircraft fleet and shut down, the people said. It wasn’t immediately clear what the specific timing of that might look like. While speaking to the press Friday afternoon, Trump was asked by a reporter what was holding up the Spirit deadline. The president responded: We’re looking at trying to help them. Something we’re not looking to get involved with, but if we can, it’s 14,000 jobs. We are– I wish they were driving a tough deal, but it’s one of those things, and we’ll do it or we won’t. We’ll have something for you today or tomorrow. The reporter then suggested that other lenders of the U.S. government were “balking” over Spirit potentially taking priority over them. Trump confirmed that Spirit was indeed the priority. “Well, they will,” Trump said in reference to lenders getting “bumped down.” “We come first. Hey, you know what it is? USA first, America first… including with airlines, including with Intel. You know, we made an Intel deal. You know that, right? We’ve made about $40 billion on that, and someday Fox and Peter [Doocy] are going to talk about it. But we helped out Intel and we ended up making $40 billion, so we’re looking at Spirit. Different kind of a thing, but we’re looking at Spirit and if we can help them, we will, but we have… [TheTopNews] Read More.
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