The crash near Reagan Airport Thursday night of a plane and helicopter is the first major emergency of the second Trump era, and Trump reacted true to form: With a Truth Social post that speculated before many facts were known, that “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
On Thursday, Trump did a press briefing about the incident, and was quickly blaming the past administration, as well as “DEI.”
“We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary,” Trump said in the briefing, without referencing any specific policy, as reported by NBC News.
“And then when I left office and Biden took over, he 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. The policy was horrible, and the politics was even worse.”
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Some also noted that Trump was looking especially orange during the briefing:
Trump, looking like an Oompa Loompa with severe scalp mange uses the American Airlines / Blackhawk helicopter tragedy to trash Obama and Biden and complement himself. This deranged, malignant narcissist is as pathetic a human being as it gets. 😡😡😡👇 pic.twitter.com/J7jN41OGbL
— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) January 30, 2025
Once again, Trump was not clear about how any decision by two previous presidents was to blame for the crash on Wednesday.
Per Raw Story, Trump was referencing a “misleading Fox News story” from early 2024 that blamed “FAA emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion standards” for an Alaska Airlines incident around the same time.
“I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here’s one the FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” Trump said at the briefing, per Raw Story, although he did not draw any straight line between that and Wednesday’s tragedy.
Trump also specifically ripped former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who responded that the comments were “despicable.”
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
“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,” Buttigieg wrote on X.”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.”
