'Sickening': Senator says Trump’s DEI 'blame game' means he’s 'afraid to answer questions'

30 January

Less than 24 hours after a mid-air collision at the Washington D.C. National Airport killed as many as 67 people, President Donald Trump argued that tragedy was the result of is predecessors' hiring practices. One Democratic U.S. senator called his argument "sickening."

From the White House briefing room, Trump asserted without evidence that diversity, equity and inclusion policies, or DEI, under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were the main contributor to the crash. During a Thursday interview on MSNBC, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told host Chris Jansing that Trump's comments were "sickening" and "turned [his] stomach." He also suggested that Trump may be hoping to distract the media from one of his actions that could have contributed to the crash.

"Imagine you're a you're a family member and you're grieving the loss of a family member. And you have the president of the United States telling you that your loved one was killed because of DEI, when he has zero evidence — and I mean zero, I mean less than zero — to suggest that that's true," Kaine said. "It's been reported today that President Trump scrapped an aviation safety board that was advising the [Department of Homeland Security] on January 22nd, maybe he wanted to change the subject and not have to answer questions about why he did that."

As Kaine mentioned, Trump fired every member of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee on January 22, along with the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard. In the memo announcing the firings, the Trump White House wrote that the firings of advisory committee members were part of his "commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that D.H.S. activities prioritize our national security."

According to the New Republic, the Aviation Security Advisory Committee was established more than 30 years ago after the PanAm Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The outlet reported that virtually all of the committee's recommendations had been incorporated into federal aviation safety standards, and that the committee had been out of commission for more than a week at the time of the crash.

"There was not an there was not a [Federal Aviation Administration] administrator named, okay. He's named somebody today. Great. But his decision to instead of comfort grieving families, start to play a blame game is really sickening," he continued. "And maybe there's something that he doesn't want to have the public pay attention to."

Watch the video of Sen. Kaine's comments below, or by clicking this link.

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