WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: U.S. President Donald Trump appears at a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump announced an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and took questions on a range of topics including his presidential pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, the war in Ukraine, cryptocurrencies and other topics. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

‘Shut the hell up’: Trump begged by Americans to simply stop posting online amid D.C. plane crash investigations

An investigation into the American Airlines crash that killed 67 people is underway, but Donald Trump is attempting to handle it himself.

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In a recent press conference, the president gave a rambling series of explanations for the tragedy—as well as some oversimplified helicopter piloting advice—and then quickly launched into a tirade blaming it on DEI. After the press conference, the president continued posting about the disaster on Truth Social, offering up facile generalizations about aviation in an attempt to demonstrate that he had an intellectual grasp of the situation.

In response, Never Trumper X (formerly Twitter) account Republicans Against Trump gave Donald Trump some advice of their own: “Shut the hell up and let the investigation take its course.”

Trump’s understanding of aeronautics is tenuous at best. Former Congressman and National Guard pilot Adam Kinzinger took to X to point out that the president knows “literally nothing about aviation,” and pointed to Trump’s own social media posts as proof. While Trump has attempted to paint the disaster as an easily avoidable tragedy that was the fault of unfettered DEI practices, the reality is far more complicated.

As further proof of Trump’s ignorance, Kinzinger reposted a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot, who outlined the difficulties of operating such an aircraft in a shared airspace. He wrote that Black Hawk helicopters are “designed” to be extremely difficult to spot at night, and the busy, chaotic environment inside commercial airplanes can distract the most competent pilots from unexpected hazards.

Trump has nevertheless attempted to claim that that tragedy should have been easily avoidable, citing the clear weather conditions at the time of the collision. Kinzinger called Trump’s read on the situation “absolutely bush league and childish.”

Aside from dubious explanations, Donald Trump has also spouted blame. Trump raged that progressive DEI practices were the cause of the crash, and said that the Federal Aviation Administration was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities” and “physical conditions” for jobs in aviation. Trump failed to mention that while the FAA does indeed have a policy to provide careers to people with disabilities, that policy went into effect during his own administration in 2019.

When asked by reporters how he knew that DEI was to blame, Trump answered “Because I have common sense.” Republicans Against Trump and Kinzinger would beg to differ.

The president added insult to injury in a subsequent press conference. When asked by a reporter if he would visit the crash site, Trump responded “What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?” No one laughed at the president’s ill attempt at humor.

Some social media users brought up the fact that Trump himself recently made cuts to the FAA and that perhaps he should shift the blame inward.

Others pointed out that the president was “desperate to avoid blame” for the tragedy and would spread “dangerous lies” in order to shift it away from himself, much like he did during the Covid-19 pandemic. The president spread hundreds of lies about the nature of the pandemic—which he harmfully called the “China virus”—including the ludicrous claim that it could potentially be cured by injecting disinfectant.

While America hopes that Trump heeds the advice of Republicans Against Trump and stops talking, that may be a task too great for the president to handle—his stenographers can’t even keep up with him.


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