WASHINGTON — President Trump used a White House briefing about Wednesday night’s deadly collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter over the Potomac River to rail against the Obama and Biden administrations for allegedly lowering standards for air traffic controllers via diversity programs.
The disaster resulted in 64 deaths aboard the American Airlines flight attempting to land at Reagan Washington National Airport from Wichita, Kan., and also killed three Army Black Hawk helicopter crew members.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that only the highest aptitude, the highest intellect, and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers,” Trump told the White House press corps Thursday.
“And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. 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.”
Trump added: “Almost upon entering office, I signed something last week that was an executive order, a very powerful one, restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others by the way.”
Air traffic controllers “have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. You can’t have regular people doing that job.”
Trump said Democratic administrations “put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program” and ripped former President Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as a “disaster” who had “a good line of bulls—” and ran the FAA “right into the ground with his diversity.”
“The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing,” Trump said.
“The FAA website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism — all qualified for the position of a controller.”
Trump signed orders during his first week in office seeking to do away with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
“The FAA — another story — determined that the workforce was too white. They actually came out with a directive, too white, and we want the people that are competent,” he said.
“We’ll restore faith in American air travel, I’ll have more to say about that”
Follow the NYP’s coverage of the deadly DC plane collision
During the Q-and-A period Trump acknowledged, “we don’t know, necessarily, that it was even the controller’s fault” and also blamed the Black Hawk helicopter’s crew for not spotting the plane.
“I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly, you have the ability to go up or down and the ability to turn…. the helicopter had vision of the plane… and for some reason, there were not adjustments made,” Trump said.
Trump appeared with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance — who each gave brief remarks without taking questions.
The president also announced that he was naming Chris Rocheleau to be acting FAA administrator — replacing Michael Whitaker, who resigned on Jan. 20, reportedly at the urging of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk. Rocheleau had been sworn in as the agency’s deputy administrator last week.
“When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means, on the one hand, you’re not getting the best people in government,” Vance said.
“But on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there.”
