During the Biden Administration, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby invested in environmental technologies. He had employees putting their pronounces in emails, and on their name tags. His airline supported affirmative action in California and committed to choosing board members on the basis of race. And they imposed vaccine mandates on employees before the federal government did.
They were the ‘most woke’ airline. They even suspended Twitter ads in protest of Elon Musk and had speech codes.
Now in the Trump administration, after donating a million dollars to the President’s inauguration, Kirby came out in favor of the President’s tariffs.
He appeared with the Vice President to take sides in the government shutdown.
HOLY CRAP! The CEO of United Airlines is now GOING OFF on Chuck Schumer and the Democrats for shuttering the government and refusing to pay air traffic controllers
It's getting worse for Chuck!
"Let's get a CLEAN CR…without putting the American workers and economy at… pic.twitter.com/qjjGKjL0SB
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 30, 2025
Stephen Miller is the President’s Deputy Chief of Staff. He’s the architect and defender of the President’s most extreme policies on immigration, like family separation. His wife has a podcast. That podcast’s latest guest? Scott Kirby.
NEW: @united CEO Scott Kirby on how long it will take their operations to resume back to full capacity:
"We'll be able to ramp up as quickly as the FAA. The FAA is gonna be the constraint.”
“I was 100% supportive of what they did and I think they did a really good job in a… pic.twitter.com/8pjlc9iKLy
— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) November 13, 2025
Captain Renault said to Major Strasser in Casablanca, “I have no conviction, if that’s what you mean. I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.”
During the Biden administration, Kirby was woke, making everyone use pronouns, promoting affirmative action, signing on to the President’s climate and pandemic priorities. Back then I assumed that was a reflection of honest belief, rather than craven self-interest.
The complete 180 he’s done reveals something else entirely. It was only a year ago that Scott Kirby was being roasted on the right for resurfaced clips where he dressed in drag for US Airways Halloween. Now Woke United Airlines has transformed itself into MAGA Air.
What will the next ideological reinvention be, in 2028?
Relying on business leaders to ‘do the right thing’ is nearly always a lost cause.
Scott Kirby and other CEOs today are like Siemens and Bayer from that other era. And, Stephen Miller looks and acts like Joseph Goebbels, prove me wrong.
The people have the real power; we, individually and collectively, have to stand up against overreach, regardless of who is in-charge.
Anyway, nice rage-bait, Gary. “I must say…damn good stuff, sir…” (Inglourious Basterds)
A CEO kissing the a%s of a politician of which said politician they may need favorable treatment from? Like how all the criminal bankers kissed the butt of Obama in 2009 so he wouldn’t send them to jail? Like this is something new.
Why should we be surprised to hear this from Scott Kirby? Just talk to UA employees, e.g. check-in agents, flight attendants… you will see his true personalities. Some said that they would rather trust a king cobra than Kirby.
He’s a kiss up and a yes man. . .why he didn’t work out at AA. Eventually, it will catch up to him when he has to make the tough decisions.
@George Romey — ‘A tale as old as time.’ And, apparently, it works well for them and their shareholders (Kirby is merely a mercenary for the ‘asset’ class, after all).
As to post-2008 financial crisis, yeah, those civil lawsuits (billions in fines) were a mere slap-on-the-wrist, and, you’re correct that no top-level executives faced criminal charges or jail time. It’s really upsetting to the rest of us who faced real economic consequences for their greed. Some say it’s a lack of commitment, competence, and courage by the DOJ (great read, The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives). Ultimately, many of those banks were not only “too big to fail,” but also, “too big to jail.” The Dodd-Frank Act (and Basel III, internationally) sought to reform this, and ensure greater resiliency (new capital and liquidity requirements), but, currently, shadow banking (hedge funds, private equity), general secrecy and de-regulation, monopolization and regulatory capture, rampant speculation, insider trading, market manipulation, and blatant corruption by the literal President through cryptocurrency and global kleptocracy are probably far worse today than in the 2000s or 2010s.
@1990: Take it easy with the Holocaust revisionism and inversion. You are entitled to not like Stephen Miller and to disagree with his policies but to call him Joseph Goebbels is a massive insult and shows huge disrespect to the victims of the Holocaust.
Kirby is thinking doing deportation flights . He could be paid in ICE points redeemable for White House Favors such as making certain those annoying flight attendants will be ordered to never strike or overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom.
@Common Sense — No, the comparison is apt to 1930s Germany, the rise of that party, and Goebbels use of propaganda to obtain and keep power by scapegoating the vulnerable.
I did not bring up the Holocaust, you did. Be honest; we don’t know where any of this, today, leads. If the end result is a mass extermination of people, that would be the worst outcome. But, no, that hasn’t happened, yet. Just the early stages, removal and exile of those vulnerable groups. See, mass deportations, ICE raids, extrajudicial rendition to El Salvadorian gulags, etc. Undeniable. Fact.