Trump and his staff exploited the tragedy to disparage Democrats and erroneously accuse former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion, instead of concentrating on the victims or offering meaningful information about the current inquiry.
President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth all participated in briefings that were dominated by political partisanship and bigotry, demonstrating the darkest manifestations of American hatred. Following a catastrophic mid-air crash over Reagan National Airport that killed at least three military soldiers in a Black Hawk helicopter and all 64 passengers on an American Airlines aircraft, the briefings continued.
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Trump and his officials used the tragedy to disparage Democrats and wrongly accuse former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, instead of concentrating on the victims or offering meaningful information about the current inquiry. While Trump and his supporters unjustly asserted that the crash was caused by diversity, equity, and inclusion policies—programs that have existed in the federal government since at least the 1960s, following President Lyndon B. Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act—Obama, who departed office in 2017, was somehow forced into the discussion.
Bakari Sellers and other prominent members of the mainstream media advised against placing blame so soon after the tragedy, but Trump once again displayed no remorse. Rather than recognizing the seriousness of the situation, he used the catastrophe to further his political goals. “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 asserted, “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.” He went on, “Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.”
Trump proceeded to attack what he described as an “FAA diversity push” while spreading lies about employment practices. He declared, “They’re including people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities—it’s amazing.” His criticisms then shifted to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “Do you know how badly everything’s run since he’s run the Department of Transportation?” “I said,” Trump said. The US President claimed, “He’s a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he was a disaster. Now he’s just got a good line of bulls—.”
In line with Trump’s criticisms, Vance, Duffy, and Hegseth asserted that government and air traffic control organizations should only employ the “best and brightest.” Vance made the unfounded claim without providing any evidence, saying, “If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin,” Hegseth continued by saying that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department.” Hegseth declared, “The best leaders possible—whether it’s flying Black Hawks, flying airplanes, leading platoons, or in government—will be chosen based on merit.”
Duffy offered no proof, but he blamed government employment procedures for the tragedy. He remarked, “We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again.”
Democrats urged patience as authorities attempted to identify the reason for the disaster, while Trump and his supporters transformed a national tragedy into a political spectacle. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) asserted, “It never does any good to speculate on the causes of aviation accidents before we have the facts and the details.” He further noted, “It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response.” While mentioning, “My heart goes out to the families of the victims on both aircraft following last night’s awful tragedy.”
Six Skating Club of Boston members—two adolescent athletes, their mothers, and two coaches—were among the 14 skaters slain as they returned home from a national development camp in Wichita, Kansas. Speaking to NBC Boston, Doug Zeghibe, the CEO of The Skating Club of Boston, fought back tears.
He stated, “Skating is a very close and tight-knit community. I think for all of us, we have lost family.” He referred to Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova as “top coaches,” pointing out that they had won the world pair championship in 1994. Zeghibe recalled the 1961 disaster that killed the entire U.S. figure skating world team when they were traveling to Prague for the world championships, saying, “This wasn’t the first plane tragedy for the club.” He continued, “It had long-reaching implications for this skating club and the sport in this country because when you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport as well.”
