'67 people are dead': Aviation reporter rips Trump’s 'inconsiderate' and 'frankly unhinged' presser

30 January

After an air collision between a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet occurred outside Washington, DC, some MAGA Republicans — including President Donald Trump and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee) — were quick to blame DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs for the tragedy.

Ogles blamed DEI during a conversation with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo, and Trump attacked DEI during a press conference on Thursday.

But aviation expert Pete Muntean called out Trump's comments as ridiculous during a conversation on CNN.

When CNN's Pamela Brown asked him if DEI policies at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were "to blame" for the collision, Muntean replied, with frustration, "I put my head in my hands, Pam. when the president said that. This is something that has been pushed by the far right for a few months now: that die policies are to blame and a degradation in safety in aviation in the United States. But frankly, the president is getting out ahead of his skis here."

Muntean continued, "What he has said is not only unprofessional, unpresidential, inconsiderate of the status of this investigation, but frankly, it is just unhinged that he could even say, with any sort of certainty, that diversity, equity and inclusion policies had any part to play in this accident."

Muntean grew even angrier when he described the likely death toll in the collision. Officials believe that neither the 64 passengers on the American Airlines flight nor the three people on the Blackhawk helicopter survived.

Muntean told Brown, "Sixty-seven people are dead. I hate to get so upset here, but this is something that investigators will really need to pick apart piece by piece. And that is going to take some really significant time. We're not even 24 hours after this crash. We're barely even 12 hours after this crash. And he is saying, with a lot of certainty, that the blame is on DEI and the blame is, in some ways, on air traffic control and air traffic controller hiring."

The aviation expert continued, "I have to feel for the air traffic controllers in the tower at Reagan National Airport, who had to essentially sit there helplessly and make the call to first responders to say, 'We have a serious aircraft crash.'"

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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