New Trump memo claims DEI, Obama and Biden 'decisions' linked to fatal aviation disaster

30 January

President Donald Trump continued his attacks on his Democratic predecessors and diversity programs late Thursday afternoon, signing a presidential memo that linked “decisions” made by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s administrations, and DEI initiatives, to Wednesday’s mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and a regional commercial airplane. The President’s memo offers no practical evidence they played a role. Sixty-seven people are believed to have died, and no one is believed to have survived.

Trump’s memo orders “a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.”

Axios reports that the “order shows Trump is doubling down on his claim, without evidence, that DEI policies were a factor in the crash. His memo explicitly mentions ‘diversity equity and inclusion,’ and reflects how anti-DEI efforts are a centerpiece of his second administration’s policy.”

Critics, including U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), say the incident took place on Trump’s watch, after he allowed the head of the FAA to reportedly resign under pressure, and gutted a critical aviation safety group Trump also just fired the head of the TSA, and placed a hiring freeze on nearly all government positions.

One Federal Aviation Administration traffic controller was assigned to both helicopters and planes when the deadly collision occurred, the FAA stated in a report.

“The report, reviewed by The New York Times, said that one controller was communicating with both helicopters and planes. Those jobs are typically assigned to two people, not one,” The Times reported. “Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,’ according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.”

Staffing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport “has been understaffed for years,” and “nearly a third below targeted staff levels,” The Times reports, citing “years of employee turnover and tight budgets.”

Calling the deadly collision a “shocking event” Trump’s memo says it “follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”

A CNN fact check found that a congressional law from 1973 “aimed to increase federal hiring of qualified people with disabilities.”

“The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude,” Trump’s memo alleges. He claimed “the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.”

The memo claims, “During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence,” but a CNN fact check reveals that “Trump’s FAA used the same language about hiring people with disabilities [that] he’s now blasting.”

“During his Thursday press conference,” CNN reported, “President Donald Trump repeatedly suggested there was a link between the tragedy and diversity hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“It’s most important to note that Trump provided no evidence whatsoever that there was any such connection. But it’s also worth noting that some of Trump’s specific assertions about the FAA’s push to hire people with disabilities were either inaccurate or missing critical context about what happened during Trump’s own first presidency.”

Political strategist Donna Brazile noted, “Without an investigation or the recovery of all of the souls that have fallen, Trump inflicts partisan damage without proof or evidence.”

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