Trump blames DEI, rails against Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg amid DCA plane-helicopter crash

In his first public remarks reacting to Wednesday night’s collision of an American Airlines commercial plane and Army helicopter, President Donald Trump, without evidence, blamed diversity, equity and inclusion policies and railed against Democrats, including former Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and former Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system,” said Trump, who claimed that he changed “Obama standards” during his first term in office “from very mediocre, at best, to extraordinary.” The president said his first administration prioritized federal air traffic control workers who were “superior” with the “highest aptitude” and “highest intellect.” He added, “That was not so prior to [me] getting there.”

Without specifying what standards he was referring to, President Trump said when he left office, President Biden “changed them back to lower than ever before.”

“I put safety first, Obama, Biden, and … the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level,” said Trump.

The president also called out the Federal Aviation Administration for “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.” Trump said that workers hired for the FAA must be “naturally talented geniuses,” telling reporters, “You can’t have regular people doing that job.”

Trump personally attacked Buttigieg, who, as former Transportation secretary, oversaw the FAA.

“You know how badly everything’s run since he’s run the Department of Transportation? He’s a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit.”

When asked directly by reporters whether he was blaming the deadly collision that took the lives of 67 people on DEI and whether there was any evidence to support it, Trump said, “It just could have been.”

Since entering office on Jan. 20, Trump and his administration have made anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion a major focus of their agenda. The president signed multiple executive orders to end DEI programs and offices throughout the federal government. Targeting DEI, critical race theory, and all things considered “woke” has been a political priority for Republicans and has only intensified following court rulings ending affirmative action and diversity programs in education and the private sector.

Critics have argued that the Republican Party’s targeting of DEI erroneously suggests that anyone who is Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, disabled, or female is somehow not qualified. More importantly, they argue, DEI hiring practices do not mean candidates somehow skip the line without having the necessary experience to do any particular job.

“[Trump] doesn’t think that the best and the brightest include a large swath of people who don’t look like him, who don’t come from where he comes from, who don’t go to the same schools, who don’t go to the same social clubs that he goes to,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne previously told theGrio. “You’re essentially saying … folks who come from nontraditional backgrounds can’t possibly be qualified to do the things that people who come from traditional backgrounds are qualified to do.”

Despite Trump’s resurgence to power and his attempt to transform the federal government, Payne said, “I do not think the American people voted to make our democracy more homogenous, to make it less diverse.”