Donald Trump’s government has started with many difficulties, the latest being the crash of a passenger plane and a military helicopter that resulted in the death of all 64 people on board.
The aircraft, which took off from Wichita, Kansas, collided with the military aircraft and subsequently fell into the Potomac River. Trump has blamed the air traffic controllers, as it has been revealed that there was only one on duty to control planes and helicopters, when in fact there should have been at least two.
In the press conference about what happened, the president experienced a controversial moment when he joked about visiting the scene of the disaster: “I have a visit planned, but not to the site, because tell me what the site is, the water? What do you want me to go swimming?”. This has gone viral on social networks, as it demonstrates a lack of empathy for the victims and their families.
Donald Trump against the Democrats: “Obama and Biden put politics first”
However, the president is clear that this is not a mistake of his administration, but another failure of Joe Biden: “We don’t know what caused the accident, but we have very strong opinions and ideas. The crew should have seen where they were going. They were at an incredibly bad angle. They could have slowed the helicopter down, they could have stopped it, or gone up or down. For some reason, it just kept going,” he explained first.
To then attack his Democratic opponents: “We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed Obama’s standards from very mediocre to extraordinary. Remember that only people with the greatest aptitude to be people with the highest intellect and psychologically superior could qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not the case before I arrived,” he began.
He then went directly after Biden, saying that standards were “lower than ever”: “Obama, Biden and the Democrats put politics first,” he said. “The FAA’s diversity push includes a focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That’s amazing,” he said, making it clear that this is something he is totally against.
“The FAA’s website states that they include people with hearing, vision, limb, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism, all of whom qualify for the position of controller of aircraft coming into our country,” he said.