'Despicable': Former Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg responds to Trump blaming DEI for plane crash
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed back Thursday against President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Biden administration's diversity initiatives during a press conference following a deadly midair aircraft crash outside of Washington, D.C.
“Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,” Buttigieg said on X, formerly Twitter, after Trump's comments on Thursday. “Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
His post came shortly after Trump finished a press conference regarding the 67 people who were killed in the collision of a passenger plane and an Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Wednesday night, leading to a significant search for bodies in the Potomac River.
Trump said he believed diversity initiatives played a role, though he has since been criticized for providing no evidence to support this claim. When asked by a reporter why he believed this, Trump said it was “because I have common sense, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”
At another point in the briefing, Trump said, “We don’t know that necessarily it’s even the controllers’ fault.” He also questioned the role of the military helicopter.
Other top administration officials blame DEI
During the same Thursday briefing, new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department.”
Vice President JD Vance, who was also present at the briefing, cited DEI as the main reason for the shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States. Again, no evidence was provided at the time to support this claim.
“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,” Vance claimed.
Contributing: Erin Mansfield, Joey Garrison, Zachary Schermele and Deborah Barfield Berry, Paste BN
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for Paste BN. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.