Of Course He Did: Donald Trump Says DEI Is To Blame For Tragic D.C. Air Collision

In his first news conference since the aircraft collision over the Potomac River, President Donald Trump on Thursday implied that diversity, equity and inclusion programs could be the cause, although an investigation has only just begun into the fatal disaster.

Trump on Thursday claimed, without citing evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration — under Democratic presidents — were partly to blame for the tragic plane and helicopter collision in Washington on Wednesday night.

The air disaster occurred as an American Airlines passenger jet approaching Reagan Washington National Airport collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on a routine training flight.

“I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen,” Trump told reporters in the White House briefing room, referring to the policies, even as the investigation into what happened is just getting underway.

This is the first major commercial airline crash in the United States since 2009, when 50 people died after a plane crashed while landing near Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

“I had to say that it’s terrible,” he said, citing what he called a story about a group within the FAA that had “determined that the [FAA] workforce was too white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration, just prior to my getting there, and we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans.”

Trump then signed an executive order later Thursday that appointed Christopher Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the FAA, as acting commissioner of the agency, which he had said he would do in the briefing. And he signed a second executive order “aimed at undoing all of that damage” caused by the “Biden administration’s DEI and woke policies.”

“We want the most competent people. We don’t care what race they are,” the president said. “If they don’t have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they’re not going to be very good at what they do and bad things will happen.”

When asked in the earlier briefing by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce whether he was saying the crash was the result of diversity hiring, Trump said, “we don’t know” what caused the crash, adding investigators are still looking into that. “It just could have been. We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else.”

Even as he made unfounded claims about the FAA’s diversity initiatives being a factor in the disaster, he then said the Army helicopter crew could be at fault — and claimed he wasn’t blaming the air traffic controller who communicated with the helicopter.

When asked how he could come to the conclusion that FAA diversity policies had something to do with the disaster, he said, “Because I have common sense, OK, and unfortunately a lot of people don’t.”

No determination of fault in the crash has been made, and the National Transportation Safety Board is conducting an investigation.

via: ABC News

Donald Trump blames Obama, Biden, Democrats, and DEI programs within the FAA for the DC plane crash. pic.twitter.com/wXnH9avmZR

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) January 30, 2025

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