NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have finally made their way back to Earth after an unexpectedly long nine-month stay on the International Space Station—an ordeal President Trump is calling yet another failure of the Biden administration.
Originally set for a short, weeklong mission, the astronauts found themselves stranded due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. While NASA scrambled to troubleshoot, the return kept getting pushed back, forcing Williams and Wilmore to become part of the station’s regular six-month crew rotation. After months of delays, the astronauts splashed down off Florida’s Gulf Coast on Tuesday at 5:57 p.m. ET aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon—a major win for Elon Musk’s company and another example of private enterprise stepping up where government bureaucracy falls short.
Trump wasted no time highlighting Biden’s incompetence, posting on Truth Social that the administration “shamefully forgot about the astronauts” because it was an embarrassment to their failed leadership. While the astronauts themselves have remained professional, their extended mission became a symbol of what Trump and Musk see as a White House too distracted by political games to prioritize American heroes in space.
As Trump has long said, America should be leading in space exploration, not leaving our astronauts in limbo. Thanks to the innovation of private companies like SpaceX, the mission ended safely—but the mismanagement under Biden is yet another reminder why strong leadership is needed in 2024.
