Washington: US President Donald Trump has lashed out at former President Joe Biden and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies after an American Airlines regional jet collided on Wednesday night with an Army helicopter while landing at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport just across the river from Washington, D.C.
At a press conference on Thursday, Trump also suggested that people with “severe intellectual disabilities” had been hired as air traffic controllers under the Obama and Biden administrations, attempting to blame his Democratic predecessors for the tragedy, Xinhua news agency reported.
When asked whether there is evidence to support his claim that this crash was the result of diversity hiring, Trump did not provide any evidence, and said he has “common sense”.
The President told reporters that “it just could have been” due to DEI policies, adding that he wants “the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest” for air traffic controllers.
Trump was backed by the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, who said “we can only accept the best and the brightest” in positions affecting passenger safety, and the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who said: “The era of DEI is gone at the Defence Department and we need the best and brightest.”
Then came the Vice-President, J.D. Vance, who claimed, “We want to hire the best people … actually competent enough to do the job”, and said without offering evidence that hundreds had sued the US government because “they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the colour of their skin”.
After Trump’s inauguration on January 20, he quickly repealed the Biden administration’s DEI policies, saying that he would end the government policy of “trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” and “forge a society that is colourblind and merit-based”.
In an executive order on aviation safety signed on January 21, Trump said the Federal Aviation Administration betrayed its mission by “elevating dangerous discrimination over excellence,” arguing that “illegal and discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring, including based on race, sex, disability, or any other criteria other than the safety of airline passengers and overall job excellence, competency, and qualification, harms all Americans”.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer immediately reacted to the President’s remarks.
“It’s one thing for internet pundits to spew up conspiracy theories. It’s another for the President of the United States of America to throw out idle speculation even as victims are still being recovered, and families are still being notified. It turns your stomach,” he said.
An investigation into the accident is underway, led by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Officials said 67 people died in the crash on Wednesday night. By late Thursday morning, 28 bodies had been retrieved from the Potomac River. The identities of victims were reported.
Since returning to the White House earlier this month, Trump has made attacks on DEI policies in the federal government a central and performative part of his rush of hardline executive orders.
(IANS)
