‘It Just Turns Your Stomach’: Trump’s False, Racist Rant About Plane Crash Roundly Condemned
President makes snap judgements about midair collision that killed more than 60
Donald Trump racist — and false — claims that non-white personnel are somehow to blame for this week’s fatal midair collision just outside Washington DC have been both condemned and debunked.
Trump made remarks at the White House Thursday, blaming — without evidence — that the hiring of non-white and non-male air traffic personnel was to blame for the mishap in which a regional commercial jet collided with a US military Black Hawk helicopter in the skies near Reagan National Airport just outside the nation’s capital.
No one among the more than 60 passengers aboard the jet or three soldiers on the helicopter survived.
The cause of the crash is unknown, and the he National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the probe into the collision, has released no findings about it.
Yet Trump asserted, “We think we have some pretty good ideas” what caused the crash, as he launched into the diversity initiatives of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, and suggested that the more-diverse hired under Biden was not up to the “highest standards of air traffic controllers.”
All of which is as false as it is offensive, according to not only top Democrats, but an aviation expert.
“I’m praying for the victims, their families, and our brave first responders as we monitor the situation,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “But I have to tell you, I just watched President Trump’s news conference. Listen, it’s one thing for Internet pundits to spew off conspiracies, it’s another for the president of the United States to throw out idle speculation as bodies are still being recovered and families are still notified. It just turns your stomach.”
Sen Chris Murphy (D-Conn) echoed those sentiments.
“A lot of Americans turned on the TV today hoping that the president of the United States was going to make a non-political, nonpartisan statement grieving the loss of those who died in that awful plane crash last night,” Murphy said on the Senate floor. “Instead, he almost immediately launched into a political tirade, blaming what he called ‘DEI.’”
An acronym for “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” DEI has become the latest dog whistle for racism and white supremacy among those on the political right.
“That accusation was echoed by the new secretary of transportation [and] the new secretary of defense,” Murphy said. “Apparently, the allegation is that, by hiring non-white men at the [Federal Aviation Administration] FAA, this plane crash occurred. That’s not true. That’s offensive. It’s not grounded in fact. It’s just not accurate that by hiring women or Black people or Hispanics that the safety of this nation is compromised. That’s offensive.
“What we’ve just learned, though, is that the initial FAA report suggests that the tower staffing was not normal during the crash, that the controller on duty last night was doing a job traditionally handled by two people,” Murphy added. “There was supposed to be someone handling helicopter traffic and someone guiding planes into the airport. There was one person doing that job last night.
“We will learn more about what caused this crash, but it is not lost on us that the president of the United States made a choice when he came into office. He threw the FAA into immediate crisis. He ousted the administrator, replaced the administrator with no one, spent the first week trying to bully and intimidate federal employees. He fired the entire FAA safety advisory board,” he added. “So, we will take the time to find out what actually happened, but this happened under President Trump’s watch. Clearly, something was not right in that tower last night, and it is important for us to follow the facts instead of making quick accusations.”
Even a Republican aviation analyst debunked Trump’s claims.
“There was no foundation for some of his statements. The whole DEI thing, every one of these pilots, the air traffic controllers, they had all met high, very high standards,” John Cox said during a live segment on MSNBC. “And so, to say, to make such allegations, there’s just no foundation of fact in it. And even greater significance, one of the things that aircraft accident investigators do, and it’s a standard worldwide and has been for decades, is to stick to the facts, the facts that you know, to not speculate and to let the evidence lead you where it leads you. So, to make speculative statements at this early part of the investigation, it’s counterproductive. It goes against the worldwide standard for accident investigation. So it’s not helpful.
“And it lets the world know that a political — a political statement can be made about something that everyone’s focused on, the factual evidence. And so, we need to stay with the factual evidence.”
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