On Thursday, as he was addressing the nation about the deadly collision that occurred near Reagan National Airport, President Donald Trump brought up concerns about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) when it comes to the crash. While he was given plenty of hate for it, including by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, he had some backup as well, including from Vice President JD Vance.
"Thank you Mr. President for your leadership. I just want to re-emphasize what the President said and you've heard from the Secretary of Transportation and of Defense. There really was a whole government response, we were all on the phone, we were all communicating yesterday trying to get to the bottom of this immediately but also try to communicate with the American people about what happened," he began.
Whether one loves or hates Trump and Vance's remarks, it was already an improvement that they were there to address the nation so quickly, unlike what we know what would have happened had this tragedy occurred during the Biden-Harris administration.
Vance also got to explaining more issues with DEI. "Something the President said that I think bears re-emphasizing, which is that 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," he continued. Sure enough, the control tower at this particularly busy airport had one person doing the work of two people.
"And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington DC--is we want to hire the best people because we want the best people at air traffic control and we want to make sure we have enough people at air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job," Vance shared. "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."
My prayers are with last night’s plane crash victims and their families.
— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) January 30, 2025
Safety is this administration’s top priority, and that means hiring the best people in air traffic control to ensure this kind of tragedy never happens again. pic.twitter.com/NStDsUwW09
It's also worth reminding that Trump himself referenced hiring notices for air traffic control positions, which is not exactly an easy job, for those with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.
This is what Trump was referring to when he called out the FAA for their DEI hiring practices to hire people with “severe psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 30, 2025
It's real. You can't make this up. https://t.co/twuulb2qEN pic.twitter.com/1iYUB8KUVq
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