Mr. Trump went back and forth between blaming diversity goals that he said were created by President Barack Obama and President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and then saying that an investigation was necessary. His instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not. It is something he has done before: After a terrorist attack in New Orleans a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas.
The president opened his news conference with a moment of silence honoring the crash victims. But then he used most of his time at the podium to cast political blame rather than call for healing after the tragedy. Without evidence, Trump blamed air traffic controllers, the helicopter pilots and Democratic policies at federal agencies. “No, I don’t think so,” he said when asked if he was getting ahead of himself. The news conference went nearly 40 minutes and Trump said officials would be releasing a full list of victims.
President Donald Trump mourned the loss of the 67 lives in the U.S. Army Black Hawk collision with a passenger jet, but took direct aim at former President Joe Biden and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday morning. While Trump admitted he does not "know that it's necessarily the air traffic controllers' fault," he hit Buttigieg and Biden for lowering the standards he had put in place for air traffic controllers. Buttigieg ran things "into the ground with his diversity," Trump said, pulling no punches on Biden and his unwinding of the first Trump administration's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and ATC (air traffic control) standards and a federal DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) push.
