Donald Trump played the blame game at his first news conference since an American Airlines jet collided with a U.S. Army helicopter Wednesday and crashed into the Potomac River.
Among those in the president’s crosshairs were Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden, a group Trump claimed was responsible for putting DEI policies in place that he says may have contributed to Wednesday night’s tragedy.
Trump, 78, opened his news conference with a moment of silence and then read prepared remarks that offered condolences and prayers to the victims’ families.
That traditional response quickly shifted into a rambling 15-minute rant where he aired grievances with his predecessors and railed against hiring policies within the Federal Aviation Administration that he claims have not been up to par.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary,” Trump claimed of the FAA during his first term. “You remember that only the highest aptitude, have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people, were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not so prior to getting there.”
The president then claimed Biden rolled back his FAA standards between 2021 and January.
“He changed them back to lower than ever before,” Trump said. “I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen, because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.”
Trump claimed the FAA was hiring people with “severe mental disabilities” under Biden. Snopes revealed previously, however, that that hiring practices that are inclusive to those with disabilities has been on the FAA’s website since as early as 2013 and remained there for the entirety of Trump’s first term.
Buttigieg, the transport secretary under Biden, received perhaps the harshest words from Trump. The president attacked him not only for his Cabinet gig, but also going all the way back to his old job as mayor of South Bend.
Trump said Buttigieg was a “disaster of a mayor” who “ran his city into the ground” and just “got a good line of bulls---,” a likely reference to his repeated appearances on Fox News where he often dismantles host’s arguments against Democrats.
All of this took place less than 15 hours since 67 people lost their lives in a tragedy that unfolded mere blocks from the White House.
Democrats were quick to slam Trump for his tone and timing, and Buttigieg fired back that the president’s attacks against his leadership were “despicable.”
“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” Buttigieg wrote mere minutes after Trump’s news conference. “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.”
The former transportation secretary called on Trump to rise to the occasion now that he is back in office for another four years.
“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA,” he said. “One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
