In response to the deadliest American airplane crash in 24 years, Donald Trump cracked a joke.
On the evening of January 29th, an American Airlines flight departing from Washington D.C. collided with a military helicopter, sending both aircraft tumbling into the frigid waters of the Potomac River below. 67 people lost their lives. When reporters asked the president if he intended to visit the crash site, Trump joked “what’s the site? Water? You want me to go swimming?”
No one laughed.
“He’s such a vile thing” wrote on user in response to Trump’s callous remark.
Another user suggested that Democrats incorporate Trump’s malign attempt at humor in future ad campaigns against him.
Others believe that Trump is simply annoyed by the tragedy, as it reflects poorly on the first week of his presidency. “He’s mad at them for dying,” wrote one user about Trump’s callous response to the tragedy and its victims.
Some shot back that Trump’s response was an attempt to save face: “he doesn’t read and he can’t swim.”
Donald Trump’s penchant for cruel humor precedes this tragedy by a decade. While campaigning for office in 2015, Trump came under fire for doing an impression of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition.
More recently, Trump’s mockeries have stirred international animosity between the United States and one of its closest allies, Canada. After winning the 2024 presidential election, Trump began to refer to Canada as the “51st State,” and trolled then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the state’s “governor.” Trump has since turned the jab into an outright threat, claiming that he will annex Canada into the United States through “economic force.”
Trump has been widely criticized for his response to the D.C. plane crash, which he has falsely attributed to DEI hiring practices in the aviation sector. Trump cited that the Federal Aviation Administration was hiring people with “severe intellectual disabilities” and “physical conditions” which he attributed to be the cause behind the crash, omitting the fact that the F.A.A.’s policy of recruiting air traffic controller candidates with disabilities began under his administration, and that those candidates were subject to the same rigorous standards as their non-disabled peers.
Aside from blaming DEI and making bad-taste jokes, the president has responded to the tragedy by offering up half-baked explanations of pilot error. As former lawmaker and National Air Guard veteran Adam Kinzinger points out, Trump’s explanations seem to contradict his DEI claims.
The president’s cold-hearted response to the tragedy is part of a long established pattern. Whenever the nation is rocked by disaster, Trump forgoes offering condolences in favor of laying blame on his political enemies. After the New Orleans truck attack that killed over a dozen people in early January, Trump used the opportunity to blame the Biden administration’s immigration polices, and falsely attributed the attack to undocumented migrants. When deadly wildfires incinerated L.A. neighborhoods, Trump bashed Democrats in California’s government with bogus claims about the state’s water policies and disaster preparedness.
Some of Trump’s supporters have shown that they’re willing to follow the president’s example. While speaking with Fox News, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles insinuated that DEI could have been the cause of the American Airlines crash. Other Republicans have broken with the president’s claims – Rep. Sam Graves, who oversees the Federal Aviation Administration in the House, told Politico that he didn’t think DEI “anything to do with this particular accident.”
As this user suggests, the loved ones of the victims are certain to be horrified by the president’s hard-hearted remarks. Shameful indeed.
Published: Feb 3, 2025 04:46 am