Trump criticises diversity hiring after 67 dead in US air disaster

The Star

US President Donald Trump implied without evidence federal diversity efforts were at fault on Thursday (Jan 30) after a regional jet crashed into a U.S. Army helicopter at a Washington airport, killing 67 people in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00On DEI and the claims that you've made, are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the

00:05result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?

00:09It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a much higher standard than anybody

00:14else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower, you have to go by psychological

00:22quality. And psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are

00:26various very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden.

00:31And Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite.

00:34We don't even yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed. And you are blaming Democrats

00:40and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. military who

00:45was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation

00:48right now? No, I don't think so at all. I don't think

00:50with the names of the people, you mean the names of the people that are on the plane,

00:55you think that's going to make a difference? Does it come from their families?

00:58They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names,

01:03we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American

01:07Airlines. We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military.

01:11But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised coming from you.

01:14Are you blaming your family? Please, please.

01:18You want to fire some of those diversity hire in the federal government? What's the plan?

01:23I would say the answer is yes. If we find that people aren't

01:26mentally competent, you see the language. The language is put out by them. And if you see that,

01:34I'm not going to bore you by reading it again, but these are not people that should be doing

01:39this particular job. They'd be very good for certain jobs, but not people that should be

01:42doing this particular job. Mr. President, you have today blamed the

01:49diversity elements, but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake.

01:56You then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.

02:02It's all under investigation. I understand that. That's why I'm

02:05trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity

02:09had something to do with this crash. Because I have common sense, okay? And

02:14unfortunately, a lot of people don't. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major

02:20chess game at the highest level. When you have 60 planes coming in during a short period of time,

02:27and they're all coming in different directions, and you're dealing with very high-level computer

02:33work and very complex computers. And one of the other things I will tell you is that the

02:39systems that were built, I was going to rebuild the entire system, and then we had an election

02:45that didn't turn out the way it should have. But they didn't build the systems properly.

02:50They spent a lot of money renovating a system, spending much more money than they would have

02:54spent if they bought a new system for air traffic controllers, meaning the computerized systems.

03:00There are certain companies that do a very good job. They didn't use those companies. They use

03:04companies that should not have been doing it. No, I think it's very important to understand that

03:10for some jobs, and not only this, but air traffic controllers,

03:14they have to be at the highest level of genius. Okay.

03:18I want to ask you about the ice skaters in a moment because the U.S. Ice Skating Committee

03:23was affected. But first, if I can, the cited FAA tax that you read is real,

03:28but the implication that this policy is new or that it stems from efforts that began under

03:32President Biden or the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is demonstrably false. It's been

03:37on the FAA's website. Who said that? You? No, it's on the website, the FAA's website. It was there in 2013.

03:41It was there for the entirety. Take a look at what I read. It was there for the entirety of your

03:44administration too. So my question is, why didn't you change the policy during your first administration?

03:49I did change it. I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy. And then Biden came in,

03:54and he changed it. And then when I came in two days, three days ago, I signed a new order

04:00bringing it to the highest level of intelligence. Okay.

04:03It's on the website, Mr. President.

04:04Please.

04:05Mr. President, welcome back.

04:06Quiet, quiet.

04:07Thank you, Mr. President.

04:09Thank you very much, guys.

04:10Thank you, Mr. President.

04:12Thank you, Mr. President.

04:14Thank you, Mr. President.

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Transcript

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