Even as the bodies from the air crash were still being recovered from Washington’s Potomac River, here was Donald Trump broadly and baselessly blaming diversity and inclusion hiring of air controllers for the crash. Some 67 passengers, crew and military fliers died, but Trump felt it necessary to declare political blame as a priority.
Despite efforts of transportation safety investigators to assemble and process details of what happened to put a helicopter and a landing commuter plane on a collision course, Trump called a press conference to say that “common sense” informed his “strong opinion” that efforts for DEI in hiring may have created conditions for someone to be in an air controller job who was not the best and brightest.
In quick order, he blamed the Biden administration, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the Army Blackhawk pilot and 2020 election results for the crash. Of course, he did not mention having fired the head of the Federal Airlines Administration (FAA) a week ago, along with the head of the Coast Guard and the TSA, and freezing federal hiring, affecting perhaps 100 FAA jobs. At the same time, Trump ordered the FAA to stop (DEI) initiatives and hiring.
Before blaming the helicopter pilot, Trump said air traffic controller warnings “were given very, very late” and that “it should have been brought up earlier.” That’s it. No evidence. No data. No judgment about when to share a conclusion. From there, Trump suggested that allowing applicants with mental or physical disabilities was at the heart of what went wrong — or could have gone wrong.
Therefore, he argued, the Biden administration’s broadening air controller jobs to the usual list of equal employment opportunity guidelines left the country less safe.
Is it me, or does this strike you as well beyond inappropriate and just maybe a little nuts?