In the wake of the devastating D.C. plane crash that claimed the lives of over 60 people, Donald Trump has attempted to give an explanation. A former Republican suggests that he give us peace and quiet instead.
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In a post on Truth Social, Trump attempted to the describe the details of the crash, which occurred when a U.S. military helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet as it was flying over the Potomac River. Trump rattled off a series of uniformed questions, asking why more wasn’t done by pilots and air traffic controllers to prevent the collision. The president summed up the tragedy as “NOT GOOD!!!”
Former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger called the president out on his aviation ignorance. “Trump literally knows nothing about aviation, approach control, visual separation and shows the whole world this tweet,” Kinzinger wrote. Aside from his political career, Kinzinger also served as a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, so he’s familiar with aeronautics, unlike Donald Trump.
Instead of an explanation, Kinzinger asked Trump to give the American people “quiet until the facts come in.”
And, Trump has done anything but. In a statement to the press, the president gave a rambling series of remarks, demonstrating his facile knowledge of aviation. He then pointed to DEI initiatives in the Federal Aviation Administration to be a potential cause of the crash, criticizing the FAA for allowing people with “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” including “partial paralysis” and “dwarfism” to serve as air traffic controllers.
Trump’s ludicrous comments surrounding the crash, and its falsely attributed relationship to DEI, are a fresh onslaught in his administration’s war against “wokeness.” Trump recently issued a freeze on trillions of dollars worth of federal grants and loans with an executive order that was – according to his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – signed in an effort to root out “transgenderism and wokeness” from federal agencies. The FAA has been a target of Trump’s anti-DEI initiative, and the White House recently released a statement reading that the Trump administration would be putting an end to “madness” caused by “Biden DEI hiring programs” within the agency.
Not a day before the crash, a user on Twitter made an eerie prediction that Trump’s changes to the FAA would spell disaster. UMBC Political Science Professor Thomas Schaller wrote “an FAA employee I know confirms agency already lacks sufficient air traffic controllers. The so-called ‘buyouts’ and other attacks on federal employees won’t help. Remember that fact when the flight delays (crashes? ) commence and Trumpers start falsely blaming DEI or Biden.”
Trumpers already are. In an interview on Fox, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles insinuated that inclusion initiatives may have been responsible for the American Airlines crash, posing the rhetorical “did DEI play a role in this type of thing?” in the same breath as his suggestion that “human error” and “equipment failure” could have been cause.
Republicans have blamed DEI as the cause of national tragedies before. After the New Orleans truck attack killed 14 people in early January, House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise claimed that law enforcement agencies “wrapped up in the DEI movement” allowed the attack to happen due to negligence. “Their main focus is on diversity and inclusion as opposed to security,” he said in an interview with WWL Radio.
In his interview with the press, Donald Trump blamed the plane crash on Obama-era DEI initiatives, which he said turned away “genius” potential employees grounds that federal agencies were “too white.” When asked how he knew DEI was responsible for the crash, Trump answered: “Because I have common sense.”
Adam Kinzinger would disagree.
Published: Jan 30, 2025 7:33 PM UTC