President Donald Trump on Thursday blasted former President Joe Biden and Democratic variety measures after a midair collision between an American Airlines regional jet and an Military Black Hawk helicopter above Washington, D.C., the evening earlier than.
Trump, talking on the White Home, claimed that insurance policies selling variety, fairness and inclusion, or DEI, “may have been” guilty for the collision, the deadliest U.S. plane crash since November 2001.
However Trump didn’t present proof that DEI efforts had something to do with the crash, and criticized a reporter who requested if he was getting forward of the investigation into the way it occurred.
Pressed on how he may join the collision to DEI, Trump stated, “As a result of I’ve frequent sense, OK?”
Whereas Trump initially struck a somber tone, providing condolences to the victims and their households, he shortly pivoted to well-worn assaults on his political enemies.
Trump on the press briefing additionally stated he was appointing Christopher Rocheleau as “appearing commissioner” of the Federal Aviation Administration.
On the time of the incident, the FAA didn’t have a everlasting head. The company’s former administrator, Mike Whitaker, stepped down on Jan. 20, the day Trump took workplace. Rocheleau had been serving because the FAA’s deputy administrator since Jan. 21.
Nobody survived the crash, which occurred shortly earlier than 9 p.m. ET Wednesday evening, officers stated.
There have been 64 folks on board the airplane, which collided with the helicopter because it ready to land at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport. Three troopers had been on board the helicopter.
The response has switched from a rescue mission to a restoration operation, as lots of of first responders scour the Potomac River, the place each plane landed after the collision.
D.C. Hearth and EMS Chief John Donnelly stated that at the least 28 our bodies have been recovered thus far.
On the White Home, Trump started by asking for a second of silence for the 67 victims.
“In the present day, we’re all heartbroken,” he stated.
However lower than two minutes later, Trump began attacking his predecessors, Biden and former President Barack Obama.
He claimed that after taking workplace for the primary time in 2017, “I modified the Obama requirements [for U.S. aviation systems] from very mediocre at finest to extraordinary.”
“After which after I left workplace and Biden took over, he modified them again to decrease than ever earlier than,” Trump claimed. “Their coverage was horrible, and their politics was even worse.”
Trump then learn from articles crucial of variety efforts on the FAA. He additionally highlighted language from the company’s web site in regards to the authorities inserting particular emphasis on hiring folks with “focused disabilities,” together with partial paralysis, extreme mental incapacity and psychiatric incapacity.
However that language has been on the FAA’s web site since at least 2013, in keeping with the web archive web site the Wayback Machine. It remained up on the FAA web site all through Trump’s complete first administration.
Trump final week signed a presidential memo aiming to finish what the White Home known as “Biden DEI hiring applications.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth each took turns on the lectern to reward Trump for his dealing with of the crash and echo his feedback that the federal government ought to rent based mostly on “advantage” and never variety.
“The period of DEI is gone on the Protection Division,” Hegseth stated.
Trump additionally attacked Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s Transportation secretary, calling him a “catastrophe” who has “simply obtained an excellent line of bulls—.”
Buttigieg shortly hit again, calling Trump’s feedback “despicable.”
“As households grieve, Trump must be main, not mendacity,” Buttigieg stated in an X publish.
“We put security first, drove down shut calls, grew Air Visitors Management, and had zero industrial airline crash fatalities out of tens of millions of flights on our watch,” his publish stated. “President Trump now oversees the army and the FAA. Considered one of his first acts was to fireside and droop a number of the key personnel who helped maintain our skies secure.”
“Time for the President to point out precise management and clarify what he’ll do to stop this from occurring once more,” Buttigieg stated.
Regardless of his criticisms of previous administrations’ aviation insurance policies, Trump stated, “Flying could be very secure.”
“We’ve got the most secure flying wherever on the earth, and we’ll maintain it that manner,” he stated.
