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89
Trump blames DEI for weakening FAA in aftermath of Reagan National plane crash (thehill.com)
submitted 21 hours ago by FlyingSquid to c/news
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I can't find any one site that has all the things he said, but I will reproduce some of it here from various sites:

I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office. And here’s one, the FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce 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.

Brilliant people have to be in those positions, and their lives are actually shortened, very substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into one target, and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it.

He also said this:

“The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” said Trump, noting that the program allowed for the hiring of people with hearing and vision issues as well as paralysis, epilepsy and “dwarfism.”

Asked by a reporter if this crash was somehow was the result of diversity hiring, Trump said, “It just could have been.”

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-obama-biden-dei-dc-plane-crash-2023610

I have a personal policy of never linking to Twitter, but you can find that link in this article: https://www.al.com/news/2025/01/trump-suggests-faa-diversity-policy-responsible-for-washington-plane-crash.html

Anyway, sorry people with dwarfism. It's just too hard for you to work at the FAA now.

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[–] FiremanEdsRevenge 46 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

I fucking hate this stupid orange motherfucker. Never your fault, and if it is, it still isn't.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 21 hours ago

First, blaming 67 deaths on any controller or pilot is dispicable, especially before the FAA has had a chance to begin their investigation. No one nor their families deserves to go through this abuse in the middle of their grieving.

Second, Trump's own fucking pilots don't even listen to ATC instructions at DCA. Trump should check his own hiring policies before he starts blaming deaths on others.

https://www.twz.com/air/j-d-vances-campaign-jet-inadvertently-buzzed-the-washington-monument

https://youtu.be/N8bQY02SEBc

[–] FuglyDuck 3 points 12 hours ago

Trump doesn’t have enough sense to change his own diaper.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 18 hours ago

I was one of those Obama military controllers he was bashing. I worked 5 years in the military and 5 years overseas doing it. I trained between 50-100 controllers, which is pretty high.

I have major depression and anxiety. I have to do a full year of testing with both a psychiatrist and therapist no my meds to be eligible for my class 2 physical. I can't control anymore not do to my mental ability but my age. I am under the age of 40.

The problem is not DEI but lack of hires due to him and republicans defunding ATC for commercial radar controlling which is cheaper for them, no unions. Dems don't get a pass but republicans did the bulk of it.

Medical requirements for ATC specialist

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/foa_html/chap2_section_8.html

[–] [email protected] 23 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

This kind of speaking by trump is just to piss off and distract the left while giving excuses to the right. And it's working.

Musk told the leader of the FAA to quit, and he did. The vacancies at the FAA is astounding:

The FAA Has No Clear Leader During the Worst Air Disaster in 16 Years

https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials (thanks to [email protected] for pointing that out)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

There is no left.

[–] Xanthobilly 13 points 20 hours ago

Yup. DEI is the new ‘fake news.’ Pay attention to his actions not his words. He just established an extrajudicial concentration camp for migrants (and soon anyone else he doesn’t like) at Gitmo. Thats the story, and its time to take action to stop this.

[–] FlyingSquid 14 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

Getting rid of all the non-white, and disabled people in the FAA is not a distraction any more than all the plane crashes this will cause is a distraction.

I have no idea why you would call something that costs livelihoods and lives a distraction.

[–] dogslayeggs 6 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

How Trump talks about the tragedy is the distraction. What actually goes on behind the scenes is a whole other issue. In this case, I don't know if the FAA will actually do anything differently based on what Trump says. Or they might, I don't know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

And everyone who gets fired (and let's be real, probably deported) is just collateral damage?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

It's a distraction to talk about how Trump blames Biden and DEI. I'm bringing up the real issues.

Trump blames DEI for weakening FAA in aftermath of Reagan National plane crash

Edited to add: That headline is trash. Him firing people because of DEI and other articles say he blamed Biden are the distracttions. He's distracting from the fact that he fired people and Musk told people to quit and they did. This is shit headline and focuses on the wrong thing.

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Except no it isn't because his anti-DEI shit is why he fired all of those FAA employees.

So, again, this will cause a lot of death.

Not everything he says is a distraction from what he does.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

The head quit because Musk told him to.

[–] Xanthobilly 6 points 20 hours ago

And why did Musk do that? Because SpaceX was fined. It’s corruption.

[–] FlyingSquid 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

And yet there will be more plane crashes because Trump fired a lot of people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

I think we're agreeing on that point.