Donald Trump is blaming DEI for the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in more than two decades, when a regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter collided over a Washington, D.C. airport, killing 67 people. “We have a long list of problems that need to be addressed. … Instead, we’re talking about a nonsensical issue that is not based in fact,” says FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher Bill McGee, who says criticisms of DEI distract from and work against a critical staffing shortage at the FAA. McGee also discusses the dangerous politicization of the FAA and the increasing influence of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, over the aviation industry.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: During a White House press briefing Thursday, President Trump said the cause of Wednesday’s midair collision of a U.S. military helicopter with an American passenger jet at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people is still unknown, but Trump proceeded to blame, without evidence, Democrats and federal workplace DEI initiatives for the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in more than two decades.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety. We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. It matters intellect, talent. The word “talent.” They have to be talented, naturally talented, geniuses. You can’t have regular people doing that job. They won’t be able to do it. But we’ll restore faith in American air travel. I’ll have more to say about that.
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.” So they want them in, and they want them — they can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so. This was on January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump was reading from a year-old online report about efforts at the FAA to hire people with disabilities. During the news conference, journalists repeatedly questioned Trump about his unfounded assertions. This is one exchange with New York Times reporter David Sanger.
DAVID SANGER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity element, but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.
DAVID SANGER: — who made the mistake.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s all under investigation.
DAVID SANGER: I understand that. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because I have common sense, OK?
AMY GOODMAN: During Thursday’s news conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed Donald Trump’s attacks on diversity.
DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: We will have the best and brightest in every position possible — as you said in your inaugural, it is colorblind and merit-based — the best leaders possible, whether it’s flying Black Hawks and flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government. The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest, whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals or whether it’s throughout government.
AMY GOODMAN: During Thursday’s press conference, Vice President JD Vance echoed Trump’s attacks on DEI.
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: 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, but, on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there. And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington, D.C., is we want to hire the best people, because we want the best people in air traffic control, and we want to make sure we have enough people in air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job. If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers but they were turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership, because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Bill McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at American Economic Liberties Project. As an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher, he spent seven years in airline flight operations management and is the author of Attention All Passengers: The Airlines’ Dangerous Descent — and How to Reclaim Our Skies. He teaches at Vaughn College of Aeronautics. Bill McGee’s new piece for Frommer’s is headlined “The Big Lie of Aviation DEI.”
Now, I want to point out, Bill, that you wrote this piece not in response to the news conference at the White House, but before the White House news conference and before the crash. Can you talk about what’s going on here? President Trump, when asked about any other issue, said, “Well, the investigation has to continue,” but he still blamed the crash on DEI.
WILLIAM McGEE: Yes, you’re right. The fact is that these rumors, which are unfounded, have been swirling around aviation for more than 20 years, but they are not based in fact. That’s why I wrote what I wrote in Frommer’s the other day. That was, again, as you pointed out, you know, the day before the crash. But it’s not as if what we heard this week we haven’t heard before. And it’s simply unfounded. As you just pointed out, these rumors are not at all based in fact.
What the DEI initiatives at the FAA — and at other agencies, as well, but specifically at the FAA — what they were meant to do was to broaden the pool of recruitment for positions. But this needs to be said in all caps, in bold. The fact is, there has not been a loosening of standards. The same standards have to to apply, in terms of testing — you know, when I was licensed as an FAA dispatcher, we had a written test, we had an oral test, we had an eight-hour practical exam. All of those things are still in place. No one is going into safety critical jobs without being prepared.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill McGee, Trump blamed Biden. He blamed Obama. He blamed Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary. He said, “They actually came out with a directive: 'too white.' And we want the people that are competent,” he said. They kept talking about “the best and the brightest,” not to be confused with “the best and the whitest.” If you can comment on this and the history of this, where his certainty comes from? He says it’s just common sense, yet presented absolutely no evidence.
WILLIAM McGEE: Well, I think we need to step back a moment and look at the bigger picture with what is really going on here. We have an aviation industry in crisis, and we’ve had that for several years now, at the FAA, at Boeing, at the airlines. And for every minute that we spend talking about DEI, we’re not talking about so many other critical issues.
FAA safety inspectors, they have been understaffed for 40 years. It’s not just a matter of throwing money at these problems, but the FAA needs to be realigned. Since the Reagan administration, it has not kept pace with the industry. And, you know, we can go through a long list of problems that are not being addressed by this.
And every time I hear this, DEI — that’s why I wrote the column I wrote — the DEI issue, in my view, it’s a distraction. I mean, for those that are serious about aviation safety, they know we have a long laundry list of problems that need to be addressed, with air traffic control, with maintenance outsourcing, with the oversight of the airlines, the oversight of Boeing. And instead, we’re talking about a nonsensical issue that is not based in fact.
AMY GOODMAN: After Donald Trump’s inauguration, the White House issued an executive order titled “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation” that rescinds all diversity, equity and inclusion hiring programs at the FAA. I want to turn to Rick Larsen, ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, criticizing the executive order in a statement, saying, quote, “Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the Administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision.” And you have, Bill, The New York Times reporting, and others, that it looks like the Black Hawk helicopter, with the three, and usually it’s supposed to be four people, soldiers inside, being off the actual route and too high.
WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, you’re right. And I think Representative Larsen is correct, as well. We have had an air traffic controller shortage in this country for several years now. These issues cross political lines, by the way. They go back years and years. And the pipeline, it actually improved under Secretary Buttigieg and President Biden. We started seeing more air traffic controllers come online. But we do not have enough.
And when you look at what happened the other night in the Potomac River — I know that airport very, very well, DCA, because when I was working in airline flight operations, I worked for the Northeast Shuttle, so I dealt with DCA, dispatching flights there every day of the week. And I can tell you it’s one of the most challenging airports in the country. And we need the absolute full staffing of air traffic control at DCA and at airports all across the country. We’re not there.
The irony here is that for all the knock on DEI, it’s about doing that. It’s about broadening the net of trying to attract more people into aviation, people that traditionally were not drawn to aviation. You mentioned I teach at Vaughn College of Aeronautics. It happens to be the most diverse student body of any college in the country. And I see it all the time. We’re sending more and more people into aviation who wouldn’t before.
So, you know, we need to get rid of the rumors, that are unfounded, about the safety question, and we need to start doing things to improve the system, including staffing, staffing at the FAA on the air traffic control side and staffing at the FAA on the safety inspector side. We all know that Boeing is a mess. This was once probably the greatest corporation in this country. And why is it a mess? Well, in large measure, it’s because the FAA hasn’t been able to inspect it. They have something called the designee system, that allows Boeing employees to be the eyes and ears of the FAA. Imagine that. Imagine having to tell your boss that you need to shut down the assembly line. You’re a mid-level manager, and your mortgage is riding on this. It’s a system that really needs to be revamped from top to bottom.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the crash comes as the Federal Aviation Administration is lacking an administrator, though Trump just named one. But it was lacking an FAA administrator after Elon Musk pressured Mike Whitaker to announce his early resignation in December. Musk was furious with Whitaker after the FAA fined Musk’s SpaceX over $600,000 for safety violations on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Musk has also accused the FAA of slowing development of its experimental Starship rocket. Earlier this month, the FAA grounded Starship after a test vehicle caught fire, veered off course and exploded high above the Caribbean, the disaster triggering massive sonic booms as fiery debris reentered the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, littering the Turks and Caicos with rocket parts and forcing airlines to divert dozens of flights. So, the richest man in the world forces the head of the FAA out, and now, just after the crash, Trump names a new FAA administrator, Christopher Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the agency. Can you respond to Musk and what you know about the new FAA head?
WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, you raise a great question, you know, because about 15 years ago, the FAA Reauthorization Act in Congress specifically changed the parameters so that the FAA administrator term would be five years. And the clear intent there was that aviation safety is so critical that it should rise above politics, and that a five-year term would guarantee that an administrator would be in office during any kind of a presidential transition from one party to another, from one president to another.
Well, we didn’t see that happen, right? Michael Whitaker was in office only for a little more than a year. He should have been in office for five years. And he was removed on Inauguration Day. As you say, all of the media reports indicate this was because of Musk and because of Whitaker coming down on his company. This is not how the system is supposed to work. Aviation safety should be above politics.
And unfortunately, for decades now, we have seen not administrators, but acting administrators. That’s what we have seen in the first Trump administration. You know, you’ll recall the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX accidents. It wasn’t until after the second accident, in early 2019, that it was as if the administration woke up and said, “Oh, we don’t have an FAA administrator.” Now, I know there are those that are going to say an acting administrator is almost as good as an administrator. It’s not the case. Yes, they can run the day-to-day, and they can deal with crises, and they can, you know, put out whatever fires are burning that day. But they do not have the ability to look at long-term issues, including staffing. And so, we have to start treating this more seriously. A permanent FAA administrator needs to be in place at all times.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have right now — yeah, he may be the richest man in the world, not to be glib, but the guy who keeps blowing up rockets is now influencing airline safety policy.
WILLIAM McGEE: Yeah, it’s a very dangerous situation. There’s no two ways about it. Again, you know, the FAA used to be called the gold standard for a government agency overseeing aviation. Other nations, when they had problems, when they had accidents, that weren’t even in any way related to the United States, not involving a U.S.-built aircraft, not involving a U.S. airline, they would turn to the FAA and the NTSB and ask for assistance. We are no longer the gold standard. It’s just that simple. We have seen it in recent years when other countries have said, “No, we’ll do without the FAA on this investigation,” particularly after the Boeing MAX crashes. This is not how to run the FAA, to have someone like Elon Musk come in and make these decisions.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill McGee, I want to thank you for being with us, senior fellow for aviation and travel at American Economic Liberties Project, an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher. We’re going to link to your new piece for Frommer’s titled — for Frommer’s, “The Big Lie of Aviation DEI.” Bill McGee was editor-in-chief of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, and he is the author of Attention All Passengers.