President Trump came out swinging this morning, blaming the deadly crash of a US Army helicopter into an American Airlines regional jet on his Democratic predecessors and on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy.
Trump Offers His Thoughts On American Airlines Crash
Trump began his press conference with a moment of silence for the victims and their families and then offered a statement of unity:
“We are one family, and today we are all heartbroken. We’re all searching for answers that icy, icy Potomac, or is it cold, cold night, cold water. We’re all overcome with the grief for many who have so tragically perished will no longer be with us. Together, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey ended not in the cold waters of the Potomac, but in the warm embrace of a loving God.”
But Trump quickly pivoted to blame, saying, “We don’t know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions.”
While acknowledging that the investigation is ongoing and it is too early to make any final determinations, he stated, “We must have only the highest standards for those that work in our aviation system,” and claimed to have changed the standards put in place under the Obama Administration standards “from very mediocre at best to extraordinary” and that only those with “the highest aptitude and intellect” deserve to be in Air Traffic Control roles.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre, at best, to extraordinary. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. Biden changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first…their policy was horrible and their politics even worse.”
Trump cited his January 22, 2025 executive order, which “orders the Secretary of Transportation and FAA Administrator to immediately stop Biden DEI hiring programs and return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring.”
He added, “It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak. who they are. It matters intellect. Talent. The word talent…you can’t have regular people doing their jobs.”
Trump then mockingly read a headline saying, “The FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” and placed the blame on former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg:
“The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner. That guy is a real winner. A real winner. Do you know how badly everything has run since he’s run the Department of Transportation? He’s a disaster…He’s just got a good line of bullshit…he’s run it right into the ground with his diversity.”
In 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration began to recruit people with disabilities to serve in roles having nothing to do with Air Traffic Control and that policy was not altered during Trump’s first administration.
Trump then took questions and was asked point-blank, “How can you say that diversity had something to do with this crash?” His response:
“Because I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t.”
He called air traffic control “a major chess game at a high level.”
Other Trump administration officials spoke at the press conference and also linked the crash to DEI.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “When you don’t have the best standards, you don’t have the best people and you put extra burden on other people.” He added:
“If you go to some of the headlines over the past ten years many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers but turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership. Safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seemed to place the blame on the military helicopter pilots and also invoked the problem of DEI, stating, “We will ahve the best and brightest in every position possible. Colorblind and merit-based. The era of DEI is gone…”
Vice President JD Vance also echoed DEI concerns.
Trump then took questions, hinting that the investigation will not take years to complete.
“We did not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we’ll probably state those opinions now, because over the years, I’ve watched as things like this happen. We think we have some pretty good ideas, but we’ll find out how this disaster occurred, and we’ll ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
“We’ll restore faith in American air travel.”
You can watch the press conference yourself:
Buttigieg has already responded, hitting back at the 47th President:
Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.
President Trump now oversees the military and the…— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 30, 2025
Very true. DEI has crippled America and needs to go to ensure that people can live in safety and security knowing the best people are in control.
“Very true. DEI has crippled America and needs to go to ensure that white people can live in safety and security knowing the white people are in control” Sorry, looks like your racism missed a few words.
Here fido, *whistles* hereeee boy.
No facts are out yet but hey,we should thank the stars that because white people are the only imminently qualified ppl in the world to do anything except manual labor, they have never or can ever make any mistakes. Glory Hallelujah!
That was not what was said. The fact that your kind is so stupid to claim the soft bigotry of low expectations is beautiful. Keep digging, buttercup. The entertainment factor is off the charts.
AB when he comments “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids”
Lulz, i bet you don’t even know who said this.
Your ignorance and racism go hand in hand. Just because someone is not white (and of course Christian) they are less qualified? Any one who has any experience in business in America and works with other countries knows that what makes America special and strong is it’s diversity. That’s what sets us apart.
But of course stupid people like yourself, and Trump, who is also an idiot want to drag it down to their intellectual level. I hate to tell you but those of us with a brain will continue to fight people like you, and the other cowards of the fascist MAGA movement until we die.
Please keep posting your ignorant racist comments because it only motivates people like myself. And also reminds me of how stupid most Americans really are.
Lulz, got another fish on the line, bubba. Get the net. I can’t imagine being so simple as to not know the ideology you claim to love. dun, da dunnnnnnn. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks which seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination on the basis of identity or disability.”
Keep digging and letting the whole world see you people for who you are.
It is 100% correct that DEI caused this.
Buttgig was a horrible DOT secretary and he caused this. But the main actor was Obama when he told the FAA to ban the CTI program because it was too white.
Obama scrapped the CTI program because it was “too white”.
He allowed the ATC system to die on the vine because it couldn’t get enough qualified candidates.
I am not a fan of DEI, but there is absolutely no way in which one can blame DEI just as no one cannot blame the politics of any of the pilots involved.
To blame DEI is a political move, nothing more nothing less.
Trump is a clown.
An egocentric who does so much harm to his country (and the world) that it even seems that it was the Chinese who put him there.
Sad times.
First “muh russia”, now “muh china”. Lulz, same song, different verse. Hey, at least matt is getting his clicks.
I understand that the MAGA brain is empty and broken, but believe me that Russia and China are allies and happy to see the American decline.
Reeee, “mumbles something about not muh side” reeeee. I mean I get your kind is about as braindead as your former leader, but I don’t vote, slick willy. But the meltdown by your kind is absolutely hilarious. I’m just glad I get to watch.
Ah Brandon self proclaimed anarchist that doesn’t vote. You fortified your right to complain.
Yes, maryland, I did. And it’s glorious to watch the crying and seething.
Na trump is 100% spot on like he mostly is.
Saying you’re a racist without saying you’re a racist: blame “DEI”.
Meanwhile Hegseth was probably tipsy when Duffy tried to talk to him during the night.
Your projection is noted, as usual.
Trump and I don’t drink alcoholic beverages, so there is no chance for me to be non-responsive at any hour because of being under the influence of alcohol like Hegseth.
DEI isn’t just race so people like myself aren’t “racists” for being against it.
Anyone that thinks Dick Levine was hired because they were the best candidate has their head in the sand.
Racists running interference for racist dog whistles and racists. Business as usual around these parts too.
When are you going to go around at an airport near you doing Musk’s “these are not Nazi” Nazi salutes? The usual suspects were running interference for Musk on that as they are on “this is DEI’s fault” when called out on their racism, hypocrisy or both.
Nazi salutes are only Nazi salutes when it’s not your side doing them. hahhaahha. Hell, if anything, he did it to troll the low information kind like you.
He did his back to back pair of Nazi salutes in the same ten day period where on different occasions he told Germans to forget the Holocaust and acted as if the the Nazi leadership in the 1930s and 1940s was a joke to not be taken seriously.
He’s one sick dude. Much like his buddy and your Lord Trump.
So when are you going around an airport near you to do those same salutes a couple of times? Go ahead and “troll” the world if that is all it is and follow in Musk’s footsteps at your most frequented airport.
I would say to touch grass, but I’m sure that would be offensive to your childish sensibilities. So weep harder, I’m sure that will make it better for you.
“ Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “When you don’t have the best standards, you don’t have the best people and you put extra burden on other people.” ”
Love or hate Trump, not sure how anyone can argue with this statement, especially in something as important as this.
But until we know exactly what happened in this specific case, Trump’s speculation isn’t helpful in this accident.
You’d need to be intelligent to argue with Criminal Trump so that excludes you!
Criminal isn’t a proper noun and therefore shouldn’t be capitalized. You were saying about intelligence?
I’m respecting his proper title unlike the one he claims to have and use.
That would have been Mr. President, in that case. lulz
To be fair, if he decided to name him “Criminal Trump,” you would capitalize it. Much like Lyin’ Ted or Little Marco.
Tell me exactly what makes Sean Duffy qualified? Because he drove an RV on MTV’s Road Rules?
Or do you assume he’s qualified because he’s white?
Lulz, you can always predict a billy bob response. It will be whatever the dopes on twitter posted that the “left” thought was “hilarious”.
Duffy’s intimately familiar with air, and qualified as Fox News airhead. And what he doesn’t know, he could learn. But unfortunately he’s a slower learner and not as well-informed as his predecessor Buttigieg was when he came into office at the DOT.
“When you don’t have the best standards, you don’t have the best people and you put extra burden on other people.”
Trump has horribly bad standards, thus he has bad people and puts extra burden on other people. Duffy is the pot calling the kettle black/DEI.
I can argue with it. What does it mean? He was just sworn in yesterday so how could he honestly make such a statement? What Christian would make such a statement?
You guys just bend over and take it and have no backbone. It’s fascinating to watch how many ‘men’ in America just have no strength at all. Yet they think because they support some blathering idiot like Trump or Musk makes them feel strong. You people are just so pathetic….no wonder you all live where no on with half a brain wants to live.
So Criminal Trump blames diversity and equality for this dreadful accident.
I suppose it’s all we might expect from this ridiculous, ignorant and bigoted character.
Perhaps before long he’ll be claiming that these aircraft missed crashing on the White House because god (if there is one) was saving him to save America. Nothing would surprise me about the lies of Criminal Trump.
Still the US has three years and fifty weeks to enjoy their buyer’s remorse.
So true. I suppose if either of the helicopters are African-American (not yet reported?), then DEI will be the battle cry. So easy to be racist if you use DEI instead of the usual bigoted terms.
Trump is NEVER my daddy, Chris – he’s a cancer upon the world…..
I get you aren’t that intelligent, but you do realize that “Muh DEI” was for all “underprivileged”. right? Nah, of course you don’t. www (dot) cbsnews dot com/news/dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-corporate-programs/
But hey, now we see who the real racists are. hahaha. Thanks for outing yourselves.
Do you consider your mother “underprivileged” compared to your father? Speaking of the mother who gave birth to you as her child, did she not benefit from the DEIA thinking that has lead to increased female labor force participation and greater pursuit of happiness for women? Why do so many people hate equality? The best people don’t fear diversity, equality, inclusiveness and accessibility.
I’m not racist and sexist like you, so no, I don’t consider my mother “underprivileged”. Those are your moronic terms. Also, female happiness is at an all-time low. So keep opening your clap-trap and proving to the world you don’t have a clue about anything. huffingtonpost (dot) co (dot) uk/amp/entry/girls-happiness-at-devastating-all-time-low-heres-why_uk_6501b35be4b01f6f9b9b7b04/
Because DEI did cause this as well as democrat corruption.
Educate yourself on why the ATC system is short staffed. It all goes back to Obama and his deep seething hatred for white people.
Cry harder libs. Trump is your daddy now.
You are such a loser.
I’m not racist and sexist like you, so no, I don’t consider my mother “underprivileged”. Those are your moronic terms. Also, female happiness is at an all-time low. So keep opening your clap-trap and proving to the world you don’t have a clue about anything. huffingtonpost (dot) co (dot) uk/amp/entry/girls-happiness-at-devastating-all-time-low-heres-why_uk_6501b35be4b01f6f9b9b7b04/
Anyone who disliked my statement blaming trump and Hegseth on the other post can suck it. At least I expressed sympathy for those who died. Trump doesn’t even care about them
We made it through Biden’s whole term without an accident. 10 days into trumps term, we have no FAA director because of Musk. Trump disbanded an aviation safety council. Trump brings on a secdef that would rather get drunk and beat his wife than work, and this is what happens. DoD choppers are crashing into passenger planes.
This is what happens when you vote for Trump. Expect more plane crashes.
Do you want some cheese with that whine?
Typical republican response. Attack the messenger but have nothing to refute what I said.
Oooo, gut punch there by an unabashed partisan. hahahaha. “if only you had brain.”
Still going, this a$$hole
Poor billy bob looked in the mirror.
You should blame biden and buttgig.
This was their failure from their departments.
It takes longer than a week to clean out the ROTT left by those two.
DEI and short staffing caused this.
Of course this asshole blames the “libruls”. Dump just fired hundreds of FAA top security officials in the past few days with his Project 2025 blitzkrieg shitstorm. When will the Repukes ever admit this POS is unfit to be the president? The country will be in a full fledged Depression and social clusterfudge by the time this Russian asset is done destroying the country.
Oh, the poor children are losing their minds that career morons are recently departed from their positions of theft. How sad.
Na the system we have was because of the democrats.
ATC system has been dying for years thanks to Obamas diversity hiring practice.
This is all on the hands of the democrats and their decades long desire to have affirmative action in all areas.
So no fatal airline disaster in USA since 2009.
During which only four years can be attributed to Trump presidency (2016-2020) so I guess the rest of the years we were just lucky ?
Yes. It’s been a powderkeg waiting to explode. Unless you missed any one of the serious close calls out of JFK, ABI, etc. But sure, this just started wednesday.
Close call =/= deadly crash
Continuing to prove you don’t understand math but claim to be intelligent.
“In 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration began to recruit people with disabilities to serve in roles having nothing to do with Air Traffic Control”
In fact, the FAA changed its hiring practices to promote diversity among air traffic controllers (hiring ‘off the street’ rather than from collegiate training programs, and privileging biographic questionnaires in a manner intended to promote diversity). I argue that this did not lead to the hiring of unqualified controllers, and isn’t one of the more significant challenges at the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization.
And, of course, we don’t have information at this time that pins the probable cause of this incident on the controllers in any case.
What @Billy Bob said
Is trump not DEI? Because he’s mentally crippled.
DEI = further racism from the party of the Klan
Trump is a national disgrace. How we can put up with this idiot for 3.92 years
He’s not wrong. You know it. I know it. Anyone with a blame knows it.
It is 100% accurate that the FAA’s own website bragged about their initiative to actively recruit employees who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions.
So why is anyone surprised? Don’t shoot the messenger.
Hegseth said the quiet part out loud. He said the helicopter flight was a “continuity of government” training flight. That would explain why it may have been flying dark.
Presumably, a continuity of government flight would involve evacuating VIPs after some kind of foreign attack, terrorist attack, nuclear attack, etc. In such a scenario, the helicopters would be flying blind to protect the VIPs.
Matthew — a growing number of your fiercely loyal friends, paying clients, and intelligent readers are getting rather sick of these repulsive comments on your blog. Surely, you can step in and edit a number of them by using your own innate intelligence and respected savvy judgment. There is no question that we have had periods of similar intellectual foment in our country before — and survived them. The optimist in me is bolstered by the words of Thomas Jefferson, penned in a time of national frenzy in 1798: “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.”
Hi Jeff, I’ll address this tomorrow in a post…I appreciate your reading over the (many) years.
Jefferson came into the Presidency with support to eliminate the Alien & Sedition Acts. Only one part of those old acts never got rescinded by Congress, and Trump plans to use it.
In response to Trump’s finger-pointing, a real man (who didn’t chicken out of serving his country during war) has stepped up to hit the ball out of the park:
“Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.
President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.” — Buttigieg
Ooof, Imagine being so smug and wrong at the same time. Vietnam wasn’t a congressionally declared war. britannica (dot) com/question/Was-the-Vietnam-War-technically-a-war#:~:text=Since%201941%20Congress%20has%20declared,war%20in%20the%20United%20States.
Do you ever get tired of being wrong?
LOL….what’s wrong? His statement is factual and relevant.
Brandon grow up, and stop trying to lie your way through life. It just looks cowardly just like your leader.
Not my leader, smooth brain. I don’t vote. I haven’t since Ron Paul, but please keep digging. This is hilarious that you don’t understand the ideology you cry about so much. Just admit you are a racist and move on. Or keep crying, because I’m dying laughing at the pretzel twisting you shills are having to do to keep up the mask.
Additionally, I’ll wait for you to show me where congress declared war on the Viet Cong. Go on Junior, please, show me where congress did so…..
You are just so clever aren’t you. That’s a grown up strategy….just don’t vote for anyone and then you can just attack everybody.
Dude, you are such weak little coward, no wonder you have no friends.
More projection from poor ol Micheal. It’s ok buddy, maybe one day you will reach the top 90% and then you can start to look up to those of us in the top 1%.
Matt, you need to turn off comments on posts like this. The sh!t throwing apes are getting out of hand.
If he turned off comments, his ad rev would be half. He thanks you for your patronage.
Once again, thank you for your childish post. It makes you look even smaller than I am sure you really are, and it elevates those you so desperately try to take down.
Will you ever get a job?
I have a job, kid. It’s not my fault I can do 40 hours of work of your work in 5 and still get have time to screw off for the other 35. Your jealousy is noted.
He’s 100% spot on
The biden admin destroyed what was left of our ATC system. It was their ATC system that caused this and OBAMA stopped the healthy flow of new controllers because they were “too white”.
DEI does indeed mean you will DIE.