Pete Buttigieg Slams Trump’s Comments Following Air Tragedy
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg lambasted Donald Trump, who blamed the recent plane crash on him.
Pete Buttigieg clapped back hard at Donald Trump after the president tried to blame the former Secretary of Transportation and the Biden administration for a fatal mid-air crash between a passenger plane and a military helicopter that is believed to have killed over 60 people.
The tragedy occurred on the evening of January 29, when American Eagle Flight 5342, which was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Sixty passengers and four crew members were on board the plane, which originated in Wichita, Kansas, and three were on board the helicopter when the aircraft collided and crashed into the Potomac River.
There were no survivors.
It was the first major commercial airliner catastrophe since the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash near Buffalo Niagara International Airport, which killed 49 people.
At a January 30 press conference, President Trump, with no evidence, blamed Buttigieg and former President Joe Biden for the crash and claimed that “DEI” and “diversity” also contributed to the disaster.
The reference to “diversity” is rooted in the assumption that Black people, women, LGBTQ people, and individuals with disabilities who are hired for any job — in this case, by the Federal Aviation Administration — are inherently unqualified for their position and that their incompetence can lead to fatal errors.
When asked how he knew that “diversity” was to blame for the crash, Trump said, “I have common sense, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.” When pressed for proof, Trump responded that the collision “could have been” caused by diversity.
“You have to go by brainpower, you have to go by psychological, uh, quality,” Trump said. “And psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden and Biden went by a standard that’s the exact opposite.”
Trump’s claim appears to have been based on a White House memo claiming that the Biden administration recruited “individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA” under DEI hiring practices. Timothy Shriver, the chairman of the board for the Special Olympics, a sports organization for people with disabilities, said on Instagram that “to our knowledge, no persons with profound intellectual disabilities are employed as air traffic controllers in the U.S. or elsewhere,” reported NBC News.
“I don’t know — incompetence might have played a role,” Trump added. “Well, we’ll let you know that, but we want the most competent people. We don’t care what race they are. We want the most competent people, especially in those positions.”
He later pivoted from blaming air controllers and asserted that the helicopter “was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He claimed the collision stemmed from having two aircraft at the same level, which “shouldn’t have happened.”
Then he went after Buttigieg, sarcastically calling him “a real winner.”
“You know how badly everything’s run since he’s run this Department of Transportation?” Trump said of Buttigieg. “He’s a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground. And he’s a disaster now. He’s good a good line of bullshit.”
Buttigieg lashed back on X.
“Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he wrote. “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.
“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
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.
President Trump now oversees the military and the…— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 30, 2025
According to The New York Times, a preliminary report from the FAA claims that staffing at the air traffic control tower at the airport was “not normal.” The Black Hawk helicopter was also allegedly not following its approved route and was flying higher than it should have been as it entered the airspace over the airport.
The FAA report claims the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity on the night of the crash was also instructing plans landing and departing from the airport — jobs typically assigned to two different controllers.
A supervisor combined those duties sometime before 9:30 p.m., allowing one controller to leave, a person familiar with the staffing levels told the Times under condition of anonymity.
The crash took place after the Trump administration offered severance packages to nearly 2 million federal workers, which may have included air traffic controllers, to create a “more streamlined and flexible workforce,” and implemented a hiring freeze on federal civilian employees.
The severance offer — which promises workers that they will earn pay through September if they resign by February 6 — aligns with other executive orders issued by Trump to eliminate DEI initiatives and programs from the federal government and to reduce job security for federal workers to make it easier to fire them if they are perceived not to be carrying out the administration’s policy goals quickly and efficiently.
However, as reported by E & E News, buyouts for federal workers are capped at $25,000 for each employee — which is far less than eight months’ salary for most workers would be. Additionally, the federal government isn’t funded until the end of the current fiscal year, with spending set to run out in mid-March unless Congress passes a stopgap funding bill. Due to both these factors, employees who opt to resign could end up being left in the lurch, with the government reneging on its promise.
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