Immediately after President Donald Trump wrapped up a White House briefing in which he repeatedly and baselessly suggested the deadly midair crash over Washington, D.C., was the result of minorities hired through diversity initiatives, several Fox News hosts praised him for playing the role of “consoler-in-chief” to the nation.
With all 67 passengers and crew of the American Airlines flight and Black Hawk helicopter that collided over Ronald Reagan National Airport feared dead, Trump pointed the finger at his Democratic predecessors and DEI policies during an unhinged press conference on Thursday.
“I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen,” Trump groused, adding that the Federal Aviation Administration hired people with “severe mental disabilities” during the Biden administration. The FAA’s policies on hiring people with intellectual disabilities, however, haven’t changed since 2013 – and remained in effect throughout Trump’s first term in office.
Trump and his administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, also accused the Biden administration of turning away qualified air traffic control applicants “because of the color of their skin,” claiming the FAA felt that its “workforce was too white.” When pressed for evidence to back his claims that diversity caused the crash, Trump said “it just could have been” and that it was merely “common sense.”
After Trump lashed out at reporters for wondering how it comforts the families of victims “to hear you blaming DEI policies” for the crash, the president walked off by claiming America has “the safest flying anywhere in the world” – despite insisting diversity in the workplace was also making air travel dangerous.
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Still, the immediate takeaway from Fox News hosts Harris Faulkner and Kayleigh McEnany was that the president solemnly honored the victims of the deadliest U.S. plane crash in nearly a quarter-century.
“I want to start, Kayleigh, with something that the president said in about his third or fourth paragraph,” Faulkner noted, reading from Trump’s prepared remarks. “‘This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital and in our nation’s history and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly. We are a country, and really we are in mourning. This has really shaken a lot of people, including people very sadly from other nations who were on that flight.’” Turning towards McEnany, Faulkner dramatically intoned: “I mean, he played the role of consoler-in-chief.”
McEnany, who was Trump’s press secretary in his first administration before joining Fox News, wholeheartedly agreed with her colleague.
“President Trump confirmed there are no survivors, but this is the hell these individuals are being put through,” she said. “[Fox News reporter] Bill Melugin said he knew one of the individuals whose wife was on the plane. She’s a mother of a 1-year-old and 3-year-old. We pray for these families, and to have a president come out as consoler in chief in a moment like this is important for the nation.”
Meanwhile, according to a preliminary FAA report, staffing at the air control tower at Reagan Airport was “not normal.” On Wednesday night, the controller who was handling helicopters in the vicinity was also instructing planes that were landing and departing, a job typically managed by two people.
The crash also comes after the president implemented a hiring freeze for federal employees despite ongoing staff shortages among federal air traffic controllers. Additionally, Trump changed the FAA’s hiring policies, which he boasted would restore “excellence and safety” within the agency. He also fired the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard while gutting a key aviation security advisory group.
Additionally, Elon Musk – the world’s richest man who has been tasked with leading a meme-based government efficiency council – helped push out the FAA administrator last week, leaving the agency without a leader amid a major aviation disaster. Musk is also behind the effort to shrink the government payroll by offering federal employees payoffs to leave.