Shortly before 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, a U.S. Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger plane in the frigid night air above the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.
The sky lit up in a massive fireball, and all 67 people onboard both aircraft are presumed dead. (Recovery efforts are still underway.)
It is the most fatal accident in our nation's skies in over 23 years.
So how did the President of the United States respond to this unfathomable tragedy — which happened just a few miles from the White House he now occupies?
Donald Trump blamed the disaster on "diversity." Some very recent history:
- On January 20, Trump was inaugurated for the second time.
- That same day, the former head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) resigned after intense pressure from Trump crony Elon Musk (who was upset that the FAA had fined his company SpaceX for violating rules around rocket launches).
- On January 21, Trump fired the director of the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
- That same day, Trump froze hiring of new air traffic controllers. (Even though there is a profound shortage of controllers nationwide, which has resulted in understaffed air traffic facilities and overworked controllers — something Public Citizen has been urging government leaders to address for years).
- Also on January 21, the Trump regime essentially disbanded the federal Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which was created by Congress in 1988 after the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
- Trump never bothered to appoint an acting director of the FAA until yesterday — after the tragedy that claimed 67 lives.
It will take time for the National Transportation Safety Board to identify exactly what went wrong. And while there is no indication that Trump's actions were responsible, his moves can only make air travel less safe.
Here's some more of what Trump had to say about efforts to bring even a modicum of diversity to our nation's aviation workforce:
Trump alleged that the Obama administration had determined the FAA was "too white." Of course it did no such thing.
"You have to go by brain power. You have to go by psychological quality."
"We want somebody that's psychologically superior." (At the risk of stating the obvious, it's a major red flag when politicians who are already saying patently racist things start tossing in words like "superior.")
Trump was asked how he could determine that diversity hiring had caused the crash. He quickly — and snarkily — responded, "Because I have common sense." Trump and his MAGA minions are doing more than blaming "DEI" for every ill. They are weaponizing the racist, sexist proposition that white men are always and automatically "meritorious" — despite the glaringly obvious counterexample of their own administration — while anyone else is inherently unqualified.
In another era, the kind of demagoguery we find ourselves living through once again was embodied in a figurehead who came to be so detested that his name is now shorthand for unhinged prejudice and tyranny. Joseph McCarthy's ultimate downfall was in large part set off by an impromptu remark from a U.S. Army lawyer — Joseph N. Welch — who found himself genuinely shocked upon encountering McCarthy's maniacal extremism in person during a televised Senate hearing.
This is what Welch famously said to McCarthy:
"Until this moment, senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. ... Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
We invite you to join Public Citizen in a message for Donald Trump: 67 people lost their lives in the cold, dark sky above Washington, D.C., Wednesday night. It has been said that in times of tragedy, the president has the duty — and privilege — to serve as our nation's Consoler In Chief. You have instead chosen, as you so often do, to function merely as Complainer In Chief. "Diversity" did not cause this tragedy. But your actions since taking office again certainly did nothing to prevent it. So the American people are asking, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" Click to add your name now. Thanks for taking action.
For decency,
- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
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