Donald Trump is blaming a devastating plane crash on DEI, and one state senator thinks he knows the reason why the president is making “allegations with no evidence.”
In an interview with CNN, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia told the network that he believes the Trump administration’s attempt to pin the tragedy on diversity initiatives is a calculated effort to distract from its own policy failings.
In Kaine’s own words, Trump’s “stomach turning” effort to attribute DEI as the cause of the crash was made so that he could avoid answering “tough questions” surrounding the involvement of Elon Musk in federal aviation affairs.
“Why did you let Elon Musk force the FAA administrator to resign?,” Kaine asked of Trump on CNN. “When this crash happened, there was no FAA administrator because he had clashed with Elon Musk.”
“Clashed” is an understatement. The acrimonious relationship between Musk and former FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker goes back many years. In 2023, the FAA announced its intent to fine Musk’s company SpaceX for numerous safety violations – including using a launch control room and rocket fuel that had not been approved by the administration. The FAA hit Musk with a financial penalty of $633,009 – chump change where the world’s richest man is concerned.
Musk was not pleased, and announced that he would be suing the FAA for “regulatory overreach.”
After a lengthy back and forth of public callouts and lawsuit threats, Musk’s feud with the FAA came to a head when he called upon Whitaker to publicly resign.
On Trump’s Inauguration Day, Whitaker did.
During his first weeks in office, Trump left Whitaker’s position unfilled. Only after the D.C. plane crash did the Trump administration announce that it would be hiring a new FAA Chief Christopher Rocheleau.
Whitaker’s resignation was far from the only change that the federal aviation system had to contend with. In his interview with CNN, Tim Kaine excoriated the Trump administration for its purge of a key aviation safety council from Homeland Security. The Trump administration also fired the head of the TSA and the Coast Guard, and announced that it would be removing all aviation advisory committees at the DHS.
The Trump administration left the federal aviation system gutted, yet he and his allies were quick to blame DEI practices for the crash. According to Kaine, one political maneuver was in service of the other. “I think the president was nervous that he was going to be asked questions about his own administration’s policies that were deemphasizing air safety,” Kaine said to CNN, “So he decided to have everybody chased down a rabbit hole of his DEI allegations with no evidence.”
While the details of the crash are still be investigated, there is not a single shred of evidence that points to DEI as the cause. Nevertheless, Trump was quick to criticize the FAA’s inclusionary hiring practices, which he claimed allowed people with ” severe intellectual disabilities” and “mental and physical conditions” to serve as air traffic controllers – despite allowing a similar FAA hiring program to go into effect under his first presidency. When asked how he knew that DEI was to blame, Trump responded, “because I have common sense.”
While Trump will likely never admit fault surrounding the crash, Kaine is putting his own common sense to work as to why the president’s administration is so seen to lay the blame elsewhere – and unlike Trump’s, Kaine’s logic makes sense.
Published: Feb 3, 2025 02:56 pm