President Donald Trump held a press conference on Thursday in which he blamed the deadly overnight plane crash in Washington, D.C., on – bizzarely – diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
The president also went after the Biden and Obama administrations, accusing them of prioritizing DEI hiring practices instead of Federal Aviation Administration safety.
“I put safety first – Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level nobody’s ever seen,” he said, claiming that he improved the Obama administration’s aviation hiring standards for air traffic controllers before the Biden administration reduced them.
On Wednesday overnight, a passenger plane coming from Kansas crashed with a military helicopter near the airport in D.C., leaving no survivors.
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Trump said his administration would set “the highest possible bar for aviation safety,” even though the Wednesday night crash was under his watch. He also began accusing, without evidence, air traffic controllers he describes as having “intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.