In The Wake Of A Tragedy, Donald Trump Chose To Blame The DC Plane Crash On Diversity Initiatives

On Wednesday night, a passenger plane coming from Kansas crashed with a military helicopter near the domestic airport in D.C., leaving no survivors. Despite the investigation having just launched, Trump said that DEI hiring practices “could have” caused the crash.

“I’m not blaming the controller,” he said. “I’m saying there are things you could question.”

The president also went after the Biden and Obama administrations, accusing them of prioritizing DEI hiring practices instead of Federal Aviation Administration safety. The blame then turned to labeling air traffic controllers as incompetent and mentally incapable of doing their jobs.

“We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brain power,” Trump said. 

“You have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it,” he continued. “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.”

“I put safety first – Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first,” he said, claiming that he improved the Obama administration’s aviation hiring standards for air traffic controllers before the Biden administration reduced them.

The reality is that Trump now oversees the military and the FAA, which means the crash happened under his watch. 

Trump’s effort to immediately politicize the crash led to a swift backlash, with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calling it “despicable.”