WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters about the collision of an American Airlines flight with a military Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport, in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on January 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Officials believe that all 64 people on the commercial jet and the three service members on the U.S. Army helicopter died when they collided midair and crashed into the Potomac River airport outside Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

‘Profoundly ignorant, prejudiced…’: Trump is torn into by a MSNBC host over hateful rhetoric

President Donald Trump’s response to the tragic plane collision that occurred on Jan. 29 has been met with disgust and anger. Instead of consoling and offering sympathy to the friends and family of those lost, he instead baselessly attacked DEI initiatives. Many aren’t having it, including this MSNBC host.

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During a press conference to address the incident in which a passenger plane and an army helicopter collided over the Potomac River, leaving no survivors, Trump chose to play the blame game. After allowing a brief moment of silence, he went on to start guessing what he thought could be the cause of the incident. Trump dived straight into his usual bag of culprits, blaming Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, former Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and also DEI hiring initiatives. There is no evidence whatsoever to support these claims.

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell was not going to stand for this. During his segment, The Last Word, he admonished Trump for his “completely indiscriminate” accusatory and unpresidential response.

“It is the first time in history that a president in the United States has assigned blame for an aviation accident on his own, immediately, based entirely on his own profoundly, ignorant, prejudiced guess,”

He compared the incident and the response to the 1982 Air Florida Flight 90, which crashed into a D.C. bridge before falling into the ice-covered Potomac River, killing 67 people. At that time, the Democrats did not go after sitting President Ronald Reagan, who had previously fired over 11,000 air traffic controllers. They waited for the results of the investigation, which determined that the crash was the result of pilot error.

O’Donnell laid into Trump for thinking he knew the “answers” to Wednesday’s crash despite the investigation having only just begun. “Every previous president in reacting to such events, such tragedies, has always begun with sympathy, including the only president who could have been blamed for an accidental plane crash and wasn’t,” he said, referencing Reagan.

Not like other Presidents

Trump has proven over and over again that he is not like other Presidents. He is not humble, he is not patient, he is not kind, he is not smart, he is not wise. This was markedly obvious at the press event where, when asked by a reporter why he blamed DEI, he stated, “I have common sense.” Common sense would dictate that you get to the root of what went wrong and then make an assessment. Decency would dictate that you allow time for people to mourn before turning to what can be done to ensure it never happens again.

Trump is waging war on DEI hiring initiatives, wanting to return America to a “merit-based society.” The same merit-based society that saw him succeed only because of the vast fortune and industry that was handed to him by his father. DEI hiring has made certain fields, such as STEM, more accessible to minorities and individuals from diverse backgrounds, those not born into wealth and connections. Certain positions benefit massively from diverse viewpoints, bringing new ideas to the table. Trump seeks to undo all of this, and industries will suffer. DEI had nothing to do with Wednesday’s crash, and to assert so is dangerous and shows an extreme lack of intelligence and decorum.


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Laura Pollacco
Laura Pollacco (she/her) is a contributing writer here at The Mary Sue, having written for digital media since 2022 and has a keen interest in all things Marvel, Lord of the Rings, and anime. She has worked for various publications including We Got This Covered, but much of her work can be found gracing the pages of print and online publications in Japan, where she resides. Outside of writing she treads the boards as an actor, is a portrait and documentary photographer, and takes the little free time left to explore Japan.