We soon learned not only that his spurious claims about having previously removed diversity-in-hiring practices were false, but some of those policies were actually heralded during his first term.
At a Thursday news conference, Trump disgraced himself and his administration by taking a national tragedy like the deadly midair collision of a passenger plane and an Army helicopter in Washington, D.C., and using it to rant about what he considers the ills of diversity.
But by the end of the day, Trump looked even more the fool. News organizations figured out not only that his spurious claims about having previously removed diversity-in-hiring practices were false, but also that some of those policies were actually heralded during his first term in office.
Oops. Being dishonest and dumb is never a great combination.
Trump consoles nation by making stuff up on diversity initiatives
Wielding zero evidence and speaking as bodies were still being pulled form the Potomac River, the president laid blame for the crash at the feet of the right’s favorite new slur: DEI, or “diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Trump railed at Federal Aviation Administration efforts to hire people with disabilities: “They want them in, and they can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so.”
He rattled off targeted disabilities the FAA had emphasized in its recruitment, speaking like someone was holding a block of stinky cheese under his nose: “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy.”
Don’t mistake what Trump means by DEI: white men with no disabilities
Trump clamored that only “naturally talented geniuses” should be hired. To be clear, when he says “naturally talented geniuses” while simultaneously railing against DEI, what he means are “white men with no disabilities.”
When asked why he thought DEI had anything to do with the crash that killed 67 people, Trump said: “I have common sense.” What that really means, in context, is: “I’m a racist, and a sexist, and someone who doesn’t believe people with disabilities are capable.”
Trump claimed he had changed Obama-era hiring practices at the FAA when he was president: “I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best, to extraordinary. … Then they changed it back – that was Biden.”
Later in the day, the president signed an executive order to review aviation safety practices, and in it the same claim was repeated.
News organizations were quick to spot Trump’s fictions
The Washington Post reported: “In his first term, Trump left the standards unchanged.”
CBS News noted: “Mr. Trump was also asked why the ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ policy was not changed on the FAA’s website throughout his first administration. He said, ‘I did change it. I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy. And then Biden came in and he changed it.’”
That’s simply not true. It’s the leader of the free world either forgetting a lot of things or just making crap up out of thin air, most likely the latter.
FAA proudly hired people with disabilities in Trump’s first term
But the most twisted and embarrassing element of Trump’s entirely useless harangue was his reading of the list of targeted disabilities.
On April 11, 2019 – during Trump’s first term – the FAA put out a news release announcing “a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.”
That 2019 announcement linked to “targeted disabilities,” which are the very list of disabilities Trump read during his news conference Thursday.
Trump didn’t know what he was talking about, and it backfired
He spoke as if to say, “Boy, what kind of woke, left-wing dip would hire people with these disabilities?!?” The answer, Mr. President, is you. You would, and you did, and it was a good thing – as it should be – back in 2019.
But now that you have a deadly midair collision that killed 67 people and a need to deflect blame away from yourself and your administration, you cast aspersions. Because of course you do.
That might be effective if you were smart enough to know what you were talking about. But you aren’t. And through lies and offensive insults during a moment of national grief, you look, once again, staggeringly incompetent.
