Just 11 days into his presidency, Donald Trump has been confronted with a national tragedy that claimed dozens of lives after a passenger jet carrying 64 people collided midair with an Army helicopter in the Washington, D.C., region Wednesday night.
His response bypassed the usual playbook that presidents typically follow after a tragedy, just as his campaign broke from political norms time and again.
Without waiting for a full investigation — or a list of the victims — the president began pointing fingers and going on the attack. Rather than using it as a moment to forgo political combat and and focus on the victims, he took the opportunity to push his agenda against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
His approach moved attention away from recovery efforts, victims and the investigation into the crash to a debate over one of his biggest political targets. And while Trump faced criticism for his handling of the moment, it was in line with how he has eschewed the way traditional politicians operate.
Trump quickly put out a social media post casting blame for the accident Wednesday night, before many facts were known.
At a White House press briefing Thursday, he read through a more traditional speech expressing condolences, but then launched into remarks that felt more like something from a campaign rally, calling a Democratic official “a disaster,” castigating his predecessors and going after DEI — despite any evidence so far that these policies contributed to the midair collision.
“I’ve been an investigator for 35 years, investigating aircraft accidents, and when you talk about standards, what we just saw does not meet the published international standards of providing information in the wake of an accident,” Jeff Guzzetti, a former investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, told MSNBC.
“I’m not trying to be political here, but the information that came out … it was not accurate. It undermined the honesty of the investigation,” he added. “And I’ve never seen something like this, where a government official circumvented the time-honored tradition of aircraft accident investigation. And you know, just personally, I think it’s appalling that these comments, political comments, were being made in the wake of the tragedy like this.”
Trump was joined by two members of his Cabinet, newly confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
During his remarks, Hegseth disclosed the ranks of the three service members who were killed in the military helicopter. It was a break from longtime Pentagon policy, which is that no information about any service member killed in the line of duty be disclosed for 24 hours after all next of kin have been notified.
Duffy — who does not have a background in transportation but gained fame as a reality-TV star before becoming a congressman from Wisconsin — just started as transportation secretary on Wednesday. He struggled through a separate Thursday-morning press briefing, telling reporters the obvious line, “It is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”
Trump opened the press briefing Thursday by thanking federal agencies and first responders, and acknowledging there were likely no survivors.
“This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital,” he said during the sober remarks.
From there, Trump’s rhetoric became more political. He blamed former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with “the Democrats,” for supporting past diversity programs within the FAA.
“I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to me entering office … the FAA diversity push includes focusing on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” Trump said. “That’s amazing.”
His comments came as rescue workers continue to search for dozens of bodies in the Potomac River.
Trump was asked by reporters how he could know that diversity programs helped cause the tragic crash after just one day, and responded, “Because I have common sense.”
“FAA employees with disabilities did not cause last night’s tragic plane crash,” the American Association of People with Disabilities said in a statement. “The investigation into the crash is still ongoing. It is extremely inappropriate for the President to use this tragedy to push an anti-diversity hiring agenda. Doing so makes all Americans less safe.”
At one point, a reporter asked Trump whether he was getting ahead of the investigation by casting blame even before the names of the victims are known.
“No, I don’t think so at all. The names of the people — you mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that’s going to make a difference? They are a group of people that have lost their lives,” Trump said, adding that a list would be released soon.
Trump also took direct aim at Pete Buttigieg, who served as Biden’s transportation secretary.
“That guy’s a real winner. … He’s a disaster” Trump said, unprompted. “He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster.”
“He’s just got a good line of bulls—,” Trump added.
Buttigieg responded on X, calling Trump’s press conference “despicable.”
“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he posted. “We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,” he wrote.
John Cox, a pilot and the president and CEO of Safety Operating Systems LLC, told MSNBC there was “no foundation” for Trump’s comments about FAA diversity programs.
“One thing that has to be remembered is that there are standards for everyone in aviation, notably in a safety critical position, be it pilots, be it flight attendants, be it dispatchers, be it air traffic controllers,” he said.
He also said the National Transportation Safety Board is the only agency allowed to release information about an investigation, according to an International Civil Aviation Treaty — meaning that Trump, Hegseth and Duffy should not have been doing so.
In addition to DEI programs among air traffic controllers, Trump also blamed a “pilot problem” in the helicopter and bad eyesight — “I can’t imagine people with 20/20 vision not seeing what’s happening up there.”
“Because it was visual, it was a very clear night,” Trump said. “It was cold, but clear and clear as you could be.”
Officials have so far given no formal cause for the midair collision.
Trump, however, also said he was “not blaming the [air traffic] controller,” and said the American people should not be afraid to fly.
“No, not at all,” Trump said. “I would not hesitate to fly.”
Both Duffy and Hegseth backed up Trump on the diversity issue during the White House press briefing.
“You made an important point that when we deal with safety, we can only accept the best and the brightest in positions of safety that impact the lives of our loved ones, our family members,” Duffy said. “And I think you make a really important point on that, Mr. President. That is the motto of your presidency, the best and the brightest, the most intelligent coming into these spaces.”
Hegseth said that hiring practices should be “colorblind and merit-based.”
During the press conference, Trump also appointed Christopher Rocheleau as acting FAA commissioner, a position that had been vacant. He did not speak during the press conference.
Diversity in the aviation industry was put in the spotlight by many conservatives early last year when a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines plane at 16,000 feet.
After that incident, many right-wing commentators and political figures began to baselessly point to DEI as a major issue in the airline industry.
“I’m sure this has nothing to do with mandated Diversity Equity and Inclusion practices in the airline industry!!!” Donald Trump Jr. posted on X in response to a post about a wheel falling off a Boeing 757. “Wheels don’t just fall off planes without gross incompetence in the equation!”
Trump said the order he signed shortly after taking office was to “restore the highest standards” at the FAA. It primarily takes aim at DEI programs at the agency.
“Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse,” Trump said of past Democratic administrations that included diversity programs. “So, as you know, last week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring our highest standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs.”
The aviation industry has had a shortage of air traffic controllers for years, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects there will be about 18,000 pilot jobs opening up each year through 2033. Aviation experts told NBC News that DEI is not a problem in an industry where there are very few Black pilots, and there is absolutely no proof that promoting diversity has led to safety issues.
Courtney Kube and Nicole Moeder contributed.
