“So, Spirit is, uh, an airline that’s had some trouble. They were going to merge with People Express, or one of them, a number of years ago and Barack Hussein Obama decided it was a bad idea,” Trump said. “How did that work out? It was bad for both of them. That would’ve been a natural merger.”
It would have been a distinctly unnatural merger, as People Express shuttered in 1987. Spirit Airlines as we know it didn’t formally exist until five years later.
Reporter: Is the government going to buy a stake in Spirit Airlines?
Trump: They were going to merge with People Express or one of them and Obama decided it was a bad idea. How did that work out? I think we just buy it. And when the price of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a… pic.twitter.com/dYKc6NhLjc — Acyn (@Acyn) April 23, 2026
It’s likely that Trump was referring to the Spirit’s attempted merger with JetBlue, which was successfully challenged in 2024 under Joe Biden’s administration over concerns that it would eliminate Spirit’s low-cost service, dull competition, and drive up prices.