After President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday, without evidence, that the Federal Aviation Administration’s diversity policies played a role in the collision between a U.S. Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet, Republican senators were doing their best to find some wisdom in the president’s claim.
“The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities,” Trump said Thursday, while also lashing out at former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden — “Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first” — as well as Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
“He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity,” Trump said of Buttigieg.
And even though there was no proof that diversity, equity and inclusion policies played any role in the mid-air collision, some Republicans were willing to entertain Trump’s argument.
“If we continue down the road of DEI and all this social justice, that stuff’s gonna get worse, and that’s the reason he’s trying to change it, is trying to get all that out of our agencies and the military to where people actually are qualified to do their jobs, instead of the diversity,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said.
“You can’t blame it on any kind of policies or politics, other than the fact that we might have to make sure everything is done by merit and not by equity, which is a total disaster in our country,” Tuberville continued.
It was a similar story with Sen. Roger Marshall.
“What I certainly agree upon is that I want my pilot, I want my [Air Traffic Control] person, to be based upon merit,” Marshall said.
While Marshall tried to maintain a solemn tone — “I’m really focused on just my concerns for the 67 people that died and the families” — he couldn’t help but defend Trump.
“What I do know is that President Trump hired, I think, over 100 air traffic controllers last week. And nothing is more important to President Trump than the safety and security of American citizens,” Marshall continued, adding that he “wasn’t aware” of a spate of firings Trump made in aviation oversight.
Other GOP senators tried to deflect questions about the president blaming DEI for the crash, while also defending, even nodding at, Trump’s unfounded claim.
“I don’t know the role of DEI,” Sen. Jerry Moran said. “I don’t know anything about that. But if it’s a problem, we ought to know.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis also suggested there needed to be skilled people in these positions.
“We need to get more people trained with that skill set,” Lummis said. “It’s long and it’s hard and it’s arduous, because it’s a high-skill position that’s not for everybody. You have to have 110% attentiveness at every second.”
Even if Republicans didn’t agree that DEI was the problem, they still tried to defend Trump.
“I don’t know what happened last night,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said. “I don’t know if there’s any DEI component to it. I’ve heard nothing like that.”
“He just made a comment about the problem,” Graham continued, ignoring Trump’s pointed diatribe about DEI. “I don’t know if there’s any connection to the problem here.”
Other Republicans also deflected questions about whether it was appropriate for Trump to use the tragedy to bolster his position on DEI, but there was a consistent theme in their answers: They refused to criticize Trump — at least by name.
“We should wait to see the results of that investigation,” Sen. Ted Cruz said. “Obviously, one or more people made a devastating and catastrophic mistake, but we should wait to examine the evidence and understand exactly what went on that resulted in the loss of 67 lives last night.”
Even though that could be seen as a criticism of Trump, Cruz refused to acknowledge that Trump didn’t wait at all, with the president even speculating late last night on social media that the crash wasn’t an accident
Sen. Josh Hawley also said he wanted to wait before jumping to conclusions, though he did say investigators should look at all possible explanations.
“I hope to look at the full gamut of possible causes and all the actors involved — the pilots, the Black Hawk pilots, everybody,” Hawley said.
And Sen. Steve Daines simply offered generic advice.
“Anytime there’s a tragedy, it can be politicized,” Daines said. “But there’ll be a thorough investigation, and we’ll find out.”
Several senators of both parties said they hadn’t seen the president’s sprawling remarks, citing their presence at the confirmation hearings of three of Trump’s most prominent and controversial nominees.
But Democrats who had witnessed Trump’s press conference were happy to excoriate the president’s remarks — and criticize the personnel moves he’s made in his 10 days in office.
“It’s outrageous that, while bodies are still on the bottom of the Potomac, and families are still being notified, the president would leverage his tragedy to advance his agenda about DEI,” Sen. Raphael Warnock told NOTUS.
“America needs leadership, and it’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump can’t provide it,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told NOTUS. “This is a moment we should be focusing on the families who have lost loved ones, on the emergency crews that are doing the work and on a thorough and careful investigation. Donald Trump is not advancing any of that.”
“The President’s press conference was disgusting,” Sen. Chris Murphy said. “The idea that the crash happened because the FAA hires non-white men is unconscionable, especially after he threw the FAA into chaos.”
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine tore into Trump’s firing of the Transportation Security Administration’s leader, as well as his dismissal of all members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.
“How about him gutting airline safety, the airline safety advisory board a couple of days ago, saying that he wanted to focus on priorities about national security,” Kaine said. “So he doesn’t think airline safety is national security?”
Former FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, who was a frequent target of criticism from Elon Musk and other Trump allies, resigned the day Trump took office before he could be fired. Trump had yet to select a replacement before Wednesday’s crash, abruptly appointing Chris Rocheleau on Thursday to lead the agency as acting administrator.
“He’s been waging a war on public employees for a week and a half, including those at the FAA,” Murphy said. “For the president to claim that it’s because the FAA hires women or Black people, is downright disgusting.”
“He’s in charge,” Murphy continued. “This happened on his watch, and he has deliberately thrown the FAA into disarray in the first days of his administration. That may not have had anything to do with the crash yesterday, but it makes his statements at his press conference today even more abhorrent.”
In remarks made later in the day from the White House, Trump said race or gender “may have” played a role in the tragedy.
“If they don’t have a great brain, a great power of the brain, they’re not going to be very good at what they do,” he said.
Trump also told reporters he would meet with families of the victims but wouldn’t visit the crash site.
“What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming? I don’t have a plan to do that,” he said.
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Mark Alfred, Tinashe Chingarande and Ben T.N. Mause are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Helen Huiskes contributed reporting.