
At a press conference today, Donald Trump refused to take any responsibility for a plane crash over the Potomac that killed over 60 people last night or even wait for the investigation to be completed before blaming others without any evidence. Included in the list of people he blamed were people hired for “diversity,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and former President Joe Biden.
The U.S. has not had any commercial plane crash fatalities in 16 years until last night, when a military helicopter collided with an American Eagle flight near Reagan National Airport. Over 60 people were on that plane and there are believed to be no survivors.
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In the brief time that he has been in the White House, Trump has offered severance packages to two million federal workers, which may have included air traffic controllers, in order to create a “more streamlined and flexible workforce” and to ensure that federal employees know that their jobs aren’t guaranteed. He also implemented a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees, which may have prevented the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from hiring air traffic controllers. At the same time, Trump ordered the FAA to stop all “Biden DEI hiring programs.”
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Trump ally Elon Musk forced the former head of the FAA, Michael Whitaker, to resign after he proposed over $600,000 in fines for Musk’s company SpaceX over safety concerns.
Trump fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and dismissed all members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee as well last week. The Aviation Security Advisory Committee was created by Congress in 1988 after the PanAm Flight 103 bombing.
But at a press conference today, Trump was blaming “diversity” for the crash even as he admitted there’s no evidence for that. Blaming “DEI” and “diversity” after disasters is a euphemism on the right, and it refers to the idea that Black people and women were hired to fill safety positions that they aren’t qualified for. Usually, the theory is presented without any evidence beyond the fact that a woman or a Black person got hired, with many on the right claiming that they could not have been qualified because they aren’t white men.
“I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t,” he said when pressed about how he could know that diversity was to blame here when the investigation has barely started.
Reporter: I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion that diversity had something to do with this crash?Trump: Because I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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Another reporter pressed him for proof and he said that “it could have been” caused by diversity.
“You have to go by brainpower, you have to go by psychological, uh, quality. And psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden and Biden went by a standard that’s the exact opposite,” Trump said. None of that is true and it’s not clear what he’s even trying to describe. Biden never ordered the FAA to hire unqualified air traffic controllers.
Trump then said that the crash occurred because “you had two planes at the same level, you had a helicopter and a plane, that shouldn’t have happened. We’ll see… we’re gonna look into that.”
Planes and helicopters both take off and land on the ground, so they have to be at the same altitude some of the time. The American Eagle flight from Wichita was landing at the airport in D.C. when the crash occurred.
Reporter: Are you saying this crash was caused as a result of diversity hiring
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 30, 2025
Trump: It could have been pic.twitter.com/VdgZZQ0jbl
Then he went after Buttigieg.
“The FAA, which was overseen by Pete Buttigieg- A real winner, that guy’s a real winner. You know how badly everything’s run since he’s run this Department of Transportation? He’s a disaster,” Trump said. “He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s got a good line of bulls**t.”
Trump uses the press briefing on the commercial jet helicopter collision at DCA to trash Pete Buttigieg: He’s a disaster… he’s got a good line of bullshit pic.twitter.com/hF00PD6iJ3
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 30, 2025
The last major U.S. commercial crash occurred in 2009 when a Continental Airlines flight out of Newark, New Jersey, hit a house as it landed in Buffalo, New York. Forty-nine people died.
No commercial airplane crash fatalities occurred during the Biden administration.
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