President Donald Trump blamed the plane crash in Washington, DC, on a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program he actually launched himself during his first term, according to a report.
While Trump was president in 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a pilot program that sought to hire more controllers with disabilities, which Trump slammed to reporters on Thursday, as reported by the Washington Post.
The program was intended to "identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce," according to an FAA release at the time.
Using internet archives, the Post reported that the links included in the release remained unchanged between June 2017 and January 2021, or much of Trump's first term.
The "targeted disabilities" mentioned in the original release included "Hearing (total deafness in both ears), Vision (Blind), Missing Extremities, Partial Paralysis, Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy, Severe intellectual disability, Psychiatric disability, [and] Dwarfism."
Those exact disabilities were mentioned by Trump while reading from a Fox News report from January 14, 2024, which he mistakenly identified as more recent.
"It says FAA ... says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, [they] said, 'They want them in, and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers.' I don't think so. This was January 14, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program," Trump said, according to The Guardian.
Trump went on to blame Democratic administrations for the crash, saying, "I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put politics first."
No evidence has been reported to suggest that DEI had anything to do with the crash. When asked about this, Trump defended his response, telling reporters, "I have common sense, okay, and unfortunately, a lot of people don't."
All 67 passengers and crew on board the Wednesday night crash between an American Airlines flight and an Army Black Hawk helicopter are believed to have died. The investigation remains ongoing.
Originally published on Latin Times
