Donald Trump stood in front of the White House press room cameras on Thursday to perform a traditional presidential duty at the time of the tragedy.
He said that the country was in mourning, and participated in his condolences during a “hour of pain” and praised the first respondents and victims.
Then he obtained it sharply – which provides another reminder of how his new presidency is completely different.
The fighting will be. It will be unprecedented. And it will be fast in the blame finger.
“We don't know what led to this incident, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas,” he said.
Then he predicted that employment standards for air traffic controllers in the Federal Aviation Administration during my presidency Joe Biden and Barack Obama may be a disaster factor.
Trump and his Republican colleagues regularly attacked “diversity, fairness and integration” programs in the federal government.
Its team made him retreat from such programs as an essential part of their first days in his position, saying that they divided the Americans and weakened the country.
Less than 24 hours after the first major American air disaster in more than a decade, Trump-besides his trustees for transport and defense, and his president-vice-president to distribute their point of view, even because they did not provide any evidence that federal employment had any connection With this particular accident.
In response to a question by one of the correspondents, how he can blame the diversity programs in the accident when the investigation has just started, the president replied: “Because I have a healthy sense.”
In other moments, he admitted that there is no certain reason, saying, “Everything is under investigation.”
Trump said that the employment guidelines of the FAA diversity and integration program included a preference for those with disabilities that involve “hearing, vision, missing limbs, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe mental disability, psychological and subsidiary disability.”
An archived version of the Web website of the FAA diversity and inclusion program included a similar list in December. The agency was looking for people “suffering from targeted disabilities” that the federal government was prioritizing employment at the time.
But it is not clear how this motivation to make employment more diverse may have affected the ranks of air traffic monitors, who said President Trump said to be “natural geniuses normally.” FAA has more than 35,000 employees, only a small part of them plays this role.
In response to criticism on diversity employment practices last year, the agency issued a statement confirming that all new appointments must fulfill “strict qualifications”, which “differ according to the situation.”
The agency faced criticism due to a long shortage of air traffic monitors, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic that caused huge disturbances in commercial air travel.
Reports indicate that employment levels at Reagan Airport on Wednesday evening may have been at risk.
In his statements, Trump specifically blamed the Minister of Transport in the Biden Bettergig, who described him as a uprising and said he was running the section “on the ground”.
Buttigieg defended his social media record, describing Trump's comments. “With the grief of families, Trump should lead, and he does not lie,” he said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also criticized Trump's comments.
“It is one thing for the internet ingenuity to start from conspiracies,” Schumer said. “
Once he left his prepared statements, speculation was what President Trump seemed more interested in showing him.
Along with his condemnation of the DEI policies, he presented a long discussion of the angles and height in which the two planes fly, weather conditions on Wednesday night, the Botomac temperature and the behavior of the army helicopter.
“We had a position where we had a helicopter with the ability to stop,” he said. “For some reason, only continue.”
There were two very soft things from Trump's comments on Thursday.
The first is that his keenness to inject himself in a major news story is not incomplete in his new mandate. The second is that, in his opinion, it is not too early to pump politics in the national tragedy – and its use to attack opponents and progress in his agenda.
