From Kvals to Aggression: Trump goes to insult after Midair -Collision

After the Twa Flight 800 crashed in New York in 1996, President Bill Clinton asked “Every American for not jumping to conclusions” About what brought it down and declared it time “to pull together and work together.”

Five years later, when the American Airlines Flight 587 fell out of heaven, President George W. Bush predicted that the “resilient and strong and brave people” in New York would get through the tragedy. In 2009, after a Colgan Air plane crashed near Buffalo, President Barack Obama said “Tragic events like these remind us of the fragility of life.”

And then there was President Trump. In the wake of this week’s Midair Collision near Washington, Mr. Trump more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be a “Times anguish for our nation,” Trump allowed only five minutes later anguish to make room for aggression when he accused the diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash that killed 67 people.

Mr. Trump has never been like other presidents. He does not follow many of the rituals and traditions in his office. He practices the policy of the division rather than unity. Where former presidents have tried to project a comforting, paternal presence for a affected nation in moments of crisis, Mr. Trump’s instinct to move quickly from grief to complaint. He has long demonstrated that he is more comfortable as head of boss than chief consoles.

His decision to use the bully sermon in the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a wealth of evidence was even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And that was no comment from the cuff. He followed up by signing an order that conducted a review of “problematic and probably illegal decisions” by Mr. Obama and Mr. Bid.

“I first set security,” Trump told journalists in his first visit to the briefing room of his second period. “Obama, Biden and the Democrats first put politics. And they put politics on a level that no one has ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was terrible and their politics was even worse. “

The democratic presidents, he said, made “a big push to put the diversity of the FAA’s program”, which led to Wednesday night’s disaster over the Potomac River. Do not remember that the “problematic” employment policy language he read had also been in place under his own administration and that he could not say if it had any connection to the crash.

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Trump has exhibited what even his own former helpers have called a “empathy gap.” Through the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with thousands of Americans who died every day at its peak, Trump rarely held long enough to dwell on the human toll and never sponsored any memorial to the fallen. Instead, he focused his public messages on finding others for guilt, whether it is China, Mr. Obama, democratic governors, the World Health Organization, Federal Regulators or his own scientific advisers.

He has reacted in the same way to natural disasters by going on the attack. Just this month, Mr. Trump on the destructive fires of Greater Los Angeles by blasting Government Head of Government Gavin Newsom of California and called him “Newscum.”

After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he engaged in a word war with San Juan’s mayor and, when he finally visited the island, if he memorably threw paper towels to people who had been left without food, water or power. Angry with criticism of his handling of the accident, he later suggested for helpers that the United States sells or acts away Puerto Rico.

“Trump does not lead with empathy,” said Olivia Troye, who served in the White House Covid Task Force staff before later criticizing the president’s leadership of the pandemic. “He is taking advantage of tragedy for whatever political complaint he is currently going, and never offers the comfort or stability that a president should.”

The exception has been if the victims of a tragedy support a political argument he has made. At a ceremony this week to sign a bill that cracked down on unauthorized immigrants accused of certain crimes, he expressed compassion for relatives of the Lake Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia-Nygeleskeager killed last year by a migrant from Venezuela , that had been crossed into that United States illegally.

Mr. Trump often moves to place any crisis in his own political or ideological narrative, regardless of the facts. He tied California -fires to weakened environmental and water policies, allegations of experts contested. After New Year’s Day’s terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Mr. Trump immigration even though the striker was a US citizen born in Texas.

This week, after the American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over Reagan National Airport, Mr. Trump directly to diversity policies without a clear basis. The problem, he said, was that candidates for airline control jobs were rejected because the workforce was “too white” while people with serious mental or physical disabilities were hired.

In addition to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, two of Mr. Trump’s long -standing favorite goal, appointed President Pete Buttigieg, who served as Mr. Biden’s Transport Secretary and said that “he is a disaster.” Mr. Buttigieg, as it happens, is considered a possible democratic candidate for president in 2028.

Mr. Trump’s immediate focus on diversity programs created indignation among Democrats. “Listen, it’s a thing for internet poundits to blow up conspiracies,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, on the Senate floor not long afterwards. “It is another for the president of the United States to throw away idle speculation as bodies are still recovered and families are still notified. It just turns your stomach. “

Mr. Buttigieg pushed back on social media. “Contemptible,” he wrote. “As families mourn, Trump should be a leader and not lie. We set security first, drove down on close calls, grew air traffic control and had zero commercial airline crashes death out of millions of flights on our clock. “

Mr. Buttigieg and other Democrats pointed out that Mr. Trump had just fired the members of an advisory group of aviation safety, although there was no indication that the move had contributed to this week’s crash. “Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he wants to do to prevent this from happening again,” Mr. Buttigieg.

In this opening chapter of his return to power, Mr. Trump to be fixed on diversity programs more than ever. Apart from immigration, he may have made it the central villain in his second period. Among his first actions was to order the elimination of diversity, justice and inclusion programs throughout the federal government and a review of federal grants and loans to wipe out anyone who promotes diversity.

Recognizes the writing on the wall, many states, sites, universities and private companies now scrap their diversity programs, either to curry advantage with the new administration or to preserve their federal funding. Mr. Trump and his allies have successfully made the abbreviation dei politically radioactive.

As with so much else in this Trump 2.0 era, the road to Mr. Trump’s banks against the Federal Aviation Administration’s leadership and policies lead back to Elon Musk, the president’s billionaire cartridge, which has led widespread latitude to restructure the government of the new administration.

Mr. Musk has long quarreled with a few who have hit his SpaceX Rocket Company with fines for security lapses and tried to delay a launch. Last fall he urged to “Radical Reform at FAA” And a week later he posted a picture of Michael Whitaker, the agency administrator, with the heading, “He has to resign.” Mr. Whitaker did just the day that Mr. Trump joined last week and the new president appointed a functioning successor on Thursday.

While Mr. Trump said there would be a “systemic and comprehensive investigation” of this week’s crash, he did not expect to offer the conclusions of his own rather less methodological study. He continued in some length around a few –ist policies that encourage the hiring of people with serious disabilities, the same in place when he was in the office last time.

What he couldn’t say was whether some people with serious disabilities were actually hired as air traffic controllers as opposed to other jobs that are compatible with their abilities. He also couldn’t say if anyone on Guard Wednesday night fits that category.

In fact, he acknowledged that there were many unanswered questions. “We don’t know that would have been the difference,” he said of helicopter pilots who did not follow instructions. He said he did not know if another plane may have blocked the pilots’ vision.

He said he did not know why no adjustments were made when the two aircraft hit each other. He said he did not know if the helicopter pilots were wearing night -vision glasses. “We do not know that it is necessarily the controller’s fault,” he said at another time.

But just because he didn’t know all these things didn’t mean he wasn’t sure who was the blame. No need to wait for the study to reach this conclusion.