President Donald Trump blew the former President Joe Biden and the DEI policy on Thursday after a collision between one in the air American airlines Regional Jet and a Black Hawk helicopter of the army about Washington, DC, last night.
At a White House press conference, Trump claimed that guidelines for promoting diversity, justice and inclusion “for the collision, the deadliest US aircraft crash since November 2001, could be responsible.
But Trump gave no evidence that the efforts caused the crash or were connected with it.
And he criticized a reporter who asked if he was going to investigate how it happened.
Trump pressed on how to connect the collision with Dei, and said: “Because I have common sense, OK?”
Trump initially struck a dark tone at the press conference and spent the victims and their families at the press conference. But he quickly gave attacks on his political enemies and DEI programs.
The crash occurred on Wednesday evening shortly before 9:00 p.m. ET when the American Airlines jet landed on Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The helicopter of the army hit the aircraft about 400 feet above the Potomac river.
The crash killed all 64 people on board the aircraft and the three soldiers on the helicopter.
Hundreds of first aiders on Thursday searched the Potomac River, in which both planes fell after colliding.
DC Fire and EMS boss John Donnelly said that at least 28 corpses have been recovered so far.
In the White House Trump first asked for a moment of silence for the victims.
“Today we are all with a broken heart,” he said.
But less than two minutes later, Trump started attacking his democratic predecessors Biden and former President Barack Obama.
Trump claimed that after taking office in 2017 I changed the Obama standards [for U.S. aviation systems] At best from very mediocre to extraordinary. “
“And when I left the office and took over bidges, he changed her back to lower than ever,” said Trump. “Her policy was terrible and her policy was worse.”
Trump then read from articles that criticized critical diversity efforts in the Federal Aviation Administration.
He also emphasized the language from the FAA website about the government, which places special emphasis on people with “targeted disabilities”, including partial paralysis, severe intellectual disabilities and psychiatric disabilities.
However, this language has been on the website since at least 2013 – a period that contains Trump's total first name of the White House – according to the Internet Archive -Website The Wayback Machine.
Trump signed a presidential memo last week that aimed at ending what the white house called “Biden dei's attitude programs”.
At the press conference of the White House on Thursday, transport secretary Sean Duffy and Defense Minister Pete Hegseth changed both from the change of speaker to praise Trump for his treatment of the crash and to repeat his comments on the basis of “merit” on diversity.
“The era of Dei is gone to the Ministry of Defense,” said Hegseth.
Trump also attacked Pete Buttigieg, bidens transport secretary and called him a “catastrophe” that “just got a good series of bulls”.
Buttigieg quickly struck back and called Trump's comments “loathesome”.
“Trump should mourn as families and not lie,” said Buttigieg in an X -Post.
“We put the security in the first place, drove close calls, expanded the air traffic control and had no fatal deaths from Commercial Airline from millions of flights on our clock,” he wrote. “President Trump now monitors the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to shoot and suspend some of the key staff who have contributed to protecting our sky.”
“Time for the President to show the actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again,” said Buttigieg.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Convised Trump for his comments.
“Since the bodies are still pulled out of the Potomac, Donald Trump and his coarse -competent administration accuse this fatal crash on minorities and white women,” Omar wrote in a post on the social media website bluesky.
“This is disgusting, racist and sexist. Your ruthless acts have consequences and they should be held accountable,” wrote the legislator.
Despite his criticism of the aviation policy of the past administrations, Trump said on Thursday: “Flying was very certain.”
“We have the safest flying all over the world and we will keep it that way,” he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board leads the crash examination, which will also include the FAA, American Airlines and others.
Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines, said on Thursday in a staff Note that the NTSB heads the examination of aviation accidents.
“The NTSB will be the only source of truth, and accuracy is of the greatest importance,” said Isom.
Trump said in the White House that he appointed Christopher Rocheleau as the “incumbent commissioner” of the Federal Aviation Administration. Rocheleau has been the deputy administrator of the FAA since January 21.
At the time of the crash, the FAA had no constant head. The former FAA administrator, Mike Whitaker, resigned on January 20, the day on which Trump started office.
– Additional reporting according to CNBCs Leslie Josephs
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