Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg hit back after President Trump criticized the Biden administration and diversity initiatives in the aftermath of a deadly midair collision outside 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 in a post on X.
“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.”
Buttigieg’s comments came minutes after Trump concluded a press conference on the Wednesday night crash between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines flight near Reagan Washington National Airport. About 60 people were believed to be on the jet, and authorities have said there are no survivors.
Appearing before reporters in the White House briefing room, Trump knocked his Democratic predecessors over aviation standards, suggesting that the Democrats didn’t put safety first — and he suggested that diversity initiatives have weakened the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen, because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse,” Trump told reporters from the White House briefing room.
The president also blasted Buttigieg, Biden’s Transportation secretary, as a “disaster.”
“He’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bulls‑‑‑,” Trump said. “Well, he runs it, 45,000 people, and he’s run it right into the ground with his diversity.”
Other Trump administration officials at the press conference echoed Trump’s claims that diversity initiatives had a weakening effect on systems.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the “era of DEI is gone” at the Pentagon. Vice President Vance claimed that recent years have seen “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.”
Asked how he could know diversity played a role in the crash when he acknowledged that air traffic controllers may not have done anything wrong, Trump told reporters it was because he has “common sense.” Earlier in the briefing, Trump had emphasized a cause of the crash hadn’t been pinned down.
The suggestions drew pushback from Buttigieg and others who critiqued the president’s remarks as politicization of the tragedy.
“We’ve just experienced a great tragedy, and the President of the United States has already rushed to politicize it — jumping to outrageous conclusions and undermining ongoing investigations. His comments were grotesque and outrageous and he owes the American people an apology,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
