Willa Pope RobbinsApr 23rd, 2026, 7:59 pm

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the government might “just buy” Spirit Airlines and “sell it for a profit” after “the price of oil goes down,” marking a stunning escalation of his administration’s attitude towards bailing out the struggling airline.

Trump answered press questions after an Oval Office meeting with Israeli and Lebanese officials, which he announced via Truth Social had led to a three-week extension to the ceasefire between the two countries. The president was asked about the news that his administration might buy a stake in Spirit Airlines in order to aid the company after multiple bankruptcy filings and mounting costs.

“So, Spirit is 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,” said Trump. “How did that work out? It was bad for both of them. That would have been a natural merger.”

He continued:

Not United and American, but Spirit and the other. We’re looking at helping them. We have 18,000 people that live in this country that are great people and great employees. We’re thinking about doing it, helping them out, meaning bailing them out. Or buying it. I think we just buy it. We’d be getting it virtually debt free. They have some good aircrafts. They have good assets. And when the price of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit. I’d love to be able to save those jobs. I’d love to be able to save an airline.

You know, I like having a lot of airlines, so it’s competitive. So we are looking at Spirit. It’s in a bankruptcy. It’s in backup court, and we’re looking. If we could get it for the right price, I’d do it to save the jobs. And we have somebody that wants to run it, do a good job, smart person. And if they run it properly and if prices come down all of a sudden, it’s a valuable asset. And they have some very good slots, too, which are pretty valuable.

The Trump administration has bought a stake in multiple private companies, including an $8.9 billion stake in computer chip designer Intel. The president has defended these moves as “very free market,” despite a growing number of Republicans speaking out against a possible Spirit Deal.

Watch above via C-SPAN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!