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THE DAILY BLAST with Greg SargentAngry Trump Snaps at Journos who Harshly Expose his Plane Crash Drivel
THE DAILY BLAST with Greg SargentAngry Trump Snaps at Journos who Harshly Expose his Plane Crash Drivel
Angry Trump Snaps at Journos who Harshly Expose his Plane Crash Drivel
Update: 2025-01-31
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After a passenger jet collided with a military helicopter over Washington DC, leaving no survivors, President Donald Trump went before the cameras and blamed Democrats and DEI for the disaster. He then seethed at reporters who dared to ask tough questions about his claims. This is an early indication that he will fall back on far right obsessions at the most sensitive moments. We talked to Juliette Kayyem, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official who has a new piece for The Atlantic about what might have led to the crash. She explains what Trump got wrong—and why his anger at facing basic scrutiny is exactly what we don’t want in a president in situations like these.
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00:00:00
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00:01:06
This is The Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
00:01:15
I'm your host Greg Sargent.
00:01:24
On Wednesday night, a passenger jet collided with a military helicopter over Washington DC
00:01:30
leaving no survivors. On Thursday, President Donald Trump went before the cameras and blamed
00:01:35
Democrats, diversity, equity, and inclusion training, and many other things for the disaster,
00:01:41
and seethed with anger at reporters who dared to ask tough questions about his claims.
00:01:46
We don't yet know what caused this crash, but Trump's rush to judgment is already demonstrating
00:01:53
how he will conduct this presidency. He's going to lead with far-right obsessions and tropes
00:01:58
at some of the most critical and sensitive moments. Trump's anger here was telling,
00:02:03
it visibly infuriated him when his efforts to push those obsessions and tropes were subjected
00:02:08
to even minimal questioning. Today we're talking about all this with Juliet Cayam,
00:02:13
a former senior department of Homeland Security official during the Obama administration,
00:02:18
who has a new piece for the Atlantic looking at conditions that might have led to the crash.
00:02:22
Juliet, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me on. So this jet had 64 people on board
00:02:29
and crashed into the Potomac river after colliding with a military helicopter at around 9 p.m.
00:02:35
on Wednesday night. The helicopter appeared to be on a training flight. Juliet, can you sum up
00:02:40
what we know so far? Why the crash happened? Yes, and the why is still being reviewed. Obviously,
00:02:49
it's just been a few hours. On the basic facts, the American Airlines regional plane collided with
00:02:55
an army helicopter. Conditions were clear, as we know. The passenger jet from Wichita, Kansas
00:03:04
was just about to arrive at Ronald Reagan, Washington National Airport. One in the succession of
00:03:10
airliners landing about two minutes apart, and that's not abnormal for national airport.
00:03:16
The Black Hawk was on a very typical training mission from Virginia's Fort Galvoire,
00:03:23
and we have been told, and I think the basic senses, both of them were on standard flight patterns,
00:03:30
well known for the DC area, and I'm just quoting Transportation Secretary Duffy. This was not unusual.
00:03:37
I think, and that's, and that's why the investigation has to determine what, in fact, happened.
00:03:43
And so, Trump immediately goes out there at a time when we really just don't know a whole lot,
00:03:49
and blame Democrats and DEI for the crash. Listen to what Trump said on Thursday.
00:03:55
And Biden took over. He changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama,
00:04:04
Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's
00:04:12
ever seen, because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.
00:04:20
Julia, can you give us an overview of what Trump thinks he's talking about there? What actually happened
00:04:27
over the last few administrations with the FAA? There's been a consistent effort by the FAA, excuse me,
00:04:35
and other government agencies to diversify their hiring. This is the criticism of DEI. I
00:04:44
want to make clear that the FAA isn't just a bunch of pilots. There's assistance and custodians,
00:04:51
and all sorts of other employees, that effort to open the lens to diversify hiring was not illegal
00:05:02
or atypical, and that effort by the FAA has been consistent through various administrations
00:05:11
and including Trumps. But he needed to latch on, in the other sort of unsophisticated nature of how
00:05:17
he deals with complexity, is most of us in the field are looking at this saying, we have a normal thing,
00:05:25
right? Lots of traffic. That's normal. Weather was normal. No suspicion of anything weird.
00:05:31
And then a tragedy, what's the why? Donald Trump thinks he can answer that with his right wing
00:05:41
infused media consumption and tries to fill the airwaves at a press conference that,
00:05:49
"While nothing should shock me now, I think I have forgotten how bad he is." In this particular
00:05:57
role crisis management, he's bad at a lot of things, but everything from, if you just go back to
00:06:04
the COVID press conference, this felt very similar to that, just a bunch of BS and then anger when
00:06:13
those lies are confronted. Well, you brought up the fact that the DEI programs persisted through the
00:06:19
Trump administration. Trump read from an article, "I haven't really tracked it down yet," but he was
00:06:26
basically saying that according to this article, the FAA is actively recruiting workers who
00:06:33
suffer severe disabilities, including intellectuals, psychiatric problems, and other mental and
00:06:39
physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's
00:06:45
website. That's more or less what he said. What's he referring to there? So he's referring to
00:06:54
unbelievably generic language that is used in efforts to hire. The FAA needs bodies. We know that,
00:07:03
in particular, after COVID or during COVID, it lost a lot of personnel. And once again, they're
00:07:10
hiring for lots of positions. And once again, some of those positions, when you think about, say,
00:07:16
mental disability, that might include military members with PTSD, who have skills that the FAA
00:07:24
may actually want. It's just, this is the idea he has of some elite group of people, all white,
00:07:31
all who look like Secretary Duffy and Secretary Heng Seth, right? This idea of this sort of toxic
00:07:39
masculinity being the smart, brilliant, the best of the best. And that's his idea of who should be
00:07:47
in these types of rules. The interesting thing about it is there were parts of the press conference
00:07:54
that were so, they sort of bordered on sort of a white supremacy aspect. This idea of sort of like
00:08:04
the favored race should be the only ones who have these jobs. It was sort of beyond, it wasn't
00:08:14
beyond the normal, but it was jarring to see it in its full flurry so soon into his administration.
00:08:22
And to see the pushback by members of the media who were in the room.
00:08:28
Well, what you're referring to there, Juliet, I think, is when he talked about how only people with
00:08:34
really supreme mental superiority and fitness are appropriate in these jobs. So they are, you know,
00:08:42
you have this really kind of weird language creeping in that I think he probably absorbed from
00:08:48
right-wing media as well. Your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think the language itself is very telling
00:08:58
about how Trump perceives fitness. And it gets to this idea of sort of righteous species. This
00:09:08
gets to the idea that you see, because you and I both follow it, the sort of right-wing blogosphere
00:09:14
and social media, this idea that we have to have more babies, the Elon Musk, the sort of the deep
00:09:21
population of whites. And all of that gets played out with the sort of bells and whistles that Trump
00:09:30
was giving it today in its full fury. I want to just add two things to this. One is it takes a certain
00:09:40
kind of person to view their role as president of the United States in that moment as one in which
00:09:49
blame should ever come into it. He could have had the easiest, easiest press conference in the world.
00:09:55
Sympathy? Two things. Sympathy and all the resources of the government are going to go to
00:10:03
figuring this out and to making sure that the American public has confidence in our aviation system.
00:10:08
Look, I could have done it. I'm not even president of the United States. All the questions should have
00:10:11
gone to Secretary Duffy. He can answer those. Then we're done. The problem is even when he was
00:10:17
all of us were sleeping through some of this last night. Trump is already posting about
00:10:21
the DEI and blaming Biden. The second is I do write and work in the field of disaster and crisis
00:10:30
management. So I know a lot about crisis leadership. The anger is a reflection of his fear. I don't
00:10:40
not defending him, but there's all sorts of metrics to determine whether Donald Trump actually has the
00:10:48
mental ability to be president of the United States. Some people wonder whether intellectually he's
00:10:55
as strong as he used to be. But one, I don't know. I can't answer that question. What I can answer
00:11:01
is having studied crisis leadership for a long time that the anger is a reflection of the fear
00:11:10
that he has in this role. And I think we saw that during COVID as well. Yeah, I think what's going
00:11:17
on here is that he is sort of lashing out in a preemptive way. He knows he has no friggin business
00:11:25
being up there. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And he suspects that the people in the room
00:11:30
probably rightly are going to see right through his BS very quickly and realize that he's
00:11:35
utterly out of his depth and unqualified. So he lashes out. It's all got this kind of social
00:11:40
Darwinist tinge to me sort of lumps himself in with the superior species of some, you know,
00:11:46
amorphous type that who the hell knows exactly what he means. But I do think that there's
00:11:52
there's a deep racial component to it on some level. He's also asked at one point what evidence he
00:11:59
has that DEI hires word of blame. And he said, quote, it just could have been. I mean, this is just
00:12:04
really sloppy shit. Yeah, people are saying people say, right? This is this is what he does, right?
00:12:10
He's going to throw it out there. And now he's he's he's gotten the orientation of the of the coverage
00:12:18
in the right wing world being to be to to repeat him. And the and the and the not right wing
00:12:25
world having to address his anger and confusion and hostility and blaming that occurred. I've gotten
00:12:35
two alerts now from major news organizations that are not about what happened or the victims or
00:12:43
or the the horror that these families are experiencing right now or or or maybe something like,
00:12:48
hey, here's a policy idea. Why don't we ground all army helicopter training missions for a period
00:12:55
until we figure out whether we want to have them there anymore? Like this, this is not rocket science.
00:13:00
This is I always say about my field. Like, it's not rocket science, but you can look like an idiot if
00:13:05
you don't know how to do it. As president, he always views himself as sort of a passive victim
00:13:11
of the very things that he should be in charge of. I mean, he did that. He did that with his
00:13:16
statements today and he does that consistently. He's he's he's watch. He he wants us to believe he's
00:13:23
just a viewer and he's pontificating as as he said in that piece. Well, it could have been
00:13:30
DEI. Well, sure. It could have been, but you're the president.
00:13:32
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00:14:40
I just want to clarify one point that came up a little earlier. When he talked about all these different
00:14:47
people who are somehow polluting the employment pool at the FAA who are inferior and whatever,
00:14:55
those programs don't necessarily really refer to the people who are making the moment-to-moment
00:15:04
decisions that affect moments like this, right? I mean, that seems to me to be cake. Can you explain?
00:15:09
Yes, there's only three places where the error could have occurred, especially since we know that
00:15:16
the circumstances were pretty normal. It is the pilot of the airplane, the pilot of the helicopter
00:15:21
where there's a lot of focus on what was going on or something happened in the air traffic control room.
00:15:28
We have audio of the air traffic control room. It does not appear that
00:15:34
anything like someone was, the helicopter pilot was notified of a visual concern. In other words,
00:15:45
he needed visual on an airplane. He says he has it. We don't know if he's looking at the right
00:15:53
plane. It could be in terms of miscommunication, the air traffic controller might have been more,
00:15:59
could have been more specific about which plane or the helicopter pilot misunderstood it.
00:16:04
So, now that has nothing to do with any of the hurricanes that the FAA was looking at because in
00:16:13
particular, all three of those positions, let's just aim at another. There were only three people
00:16:19
who were in charge of that time. All have to go through a training and standards process
00:16:26
that are not diversity-based, right? You do be a pilot of a helicopter. You still got to know how
00:16:34
to fly a helicopter. I think just giving reading the tea leaves and I want to be careful here because
00:16:40
my piece in the Atlantic also talks about systemic challenges with our aviation system. But I think
00:16:47
given the focus on the helicopter pilot that we will be learning more about what, in fact,
00:16:59
did he think he saw or was he looking at the wrong airplane? Lots of airplanes, lots of military
00:17:06
testing going on. We don't even know if he was new. Was this a retesting? Was this a retraining? We
00:17:13
don't know any of this. So, Pete Buttigieg, who was Transportation Secretary under Biden,
00:17:20
hit back a Trump for blaming his predecessors. Buttigieg said, "One of his first acts was to
00:17:26
fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe." We also know that the FAA
00:17:32
administrator resigned recently after Elon Musk demanded that he leave because Musk was angry
00:17:39
over how the FAA treated his SpaceX. What do we really know about all these claims here?
00:17:44
They're all accurate. So, cabinet secretaries are often... That to me, that's not a firing. You
00:17:53
get a new cabinet secretary. The administrator of the TSA and the head of the Coast Guard on the
00:18:00
response side, although unfortunately there wasn't much of response, everyone perished, were both
00:18:07
fired on day one, essentially. At the day one or day two of the new administrations, you don't have
00:18:14
leadership. It's sort of both your aviation and your response. And those are two key parts of
00:18:20
this as well. Over at the FAA, you have a term-appointed FAA head. That means the expectation, as we
00:18:30
had understood the FBI to be, but apparently that's no longer true anymore, is that the appointment
00:18:35
once Senate confirmed last for five years. Elon Musk goes on a rampage in December
00:18:42
about an investigation or an inquiry regarding SpaceX and whether it needed to
00:18:50
pay a fine based on some of its activities that were in violation of the safety and security
00:18:59
of our airspace. I mean, you know, the private space industry is also creating more density
00:19:07
in our in our in our skies. Elon Musk says he needs to go and he tenders his resignation
00:19:16
on day one. So there's no head of the FAA or the risk at the moment that this happened.
00:19:24
So Juliet is it fair game to point out that this happened after those really recent, you know,
00:19:34
currencies and is it fair game to say, well, Trump keeps telling us he's going to cut the living heck
00:19:40
out of the deep state and the government and he's going to sack the civil service if it isn't loyal
00:19:47
to him. I mean, he has a certain attitude towards the quote-unquote deep state by which we mean
00:19:53
the professionalized civil service that really is, I think, revealed to be pretty impoverished by
00:20:02
an event like this. Is that all fair? That is fair. I mean, I think, and I think, honestly,
00:20:07
that's why Pete Buttigieg's only out of government for eight days sort of came forward so strong is
00:20:13
is there are there are people who commit their lives to serving the public who are just being thrown
00:20:20
under the bus left and right. He did this just a week ago with FEMA. Remember, he's I'm an abolished
00:20:25
FEMA because he he hears some complain. Well, everyone in a disaster, everyone complains like that's
00:20:30
like not new. I want to I so I think that it is fair game in terms of the choices that Trump has
00:20:38
made about how he's going to lead this administration and this country into the future. I think what's
00:20:44
in and why I think it's fair is it's incumbent. I don't even want to say Democrats is just incumbent
00:20:50
on people who understand the meaning of government and people's lives to tell that story because we
00:20:59
fail to do that. I think or somehow that was story wasn't told well enough in the lead up and so
00:21:06
to the election and so Trump's able to narrate that government is the enemy until government until
00:21:13
government starts paying your bills stops paying for emergency relief starts paying for stops paying
00:21:18
for health care and or the professional class who you want to be in charge of airplanes and
00:21:26
amtrak and and our ports begins to leave either because they get a buyout or because life is
00:21:36
intolerable. And so his rush to blame DEI is really sort of a way of saying well government is
00:21:44
getting polluted by the professional managerial class by elite liberals who have taken their eye off
00:21:50
the ball who are just trying to help people who aren't like you and I'm coming into knockheads and
00:21:58
said all that's straight we're going to get rid of all that. I want to play some more audio of two
00:22:03
times Trump got angry with reporters first is under questioning from CNN's Caitlin Collins and yet know
00:22:10
the names of the 67 people we were killed and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and
00:22:16
air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. military was flying that black honk helicopter
00:22:21
don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now I don't think so at all I don't
00:22:24
think with the names of the people you mean the names of the people that are on the plane you think
00:22:30
that's going to make a difference they are they are a group of people that have lost their lives
00:22:35
if you want a list of the names we can give you that we'll be giving that very soon with
00:22:40
in coordination with American Airlines we're in coordination very strongly obviously with the
00:22:44
military but I think that's not a very smart question I'm surprised coming from you the second one
00:22:51
is I believe NBC's Peter Alexander the cited FAA tax the red is real but the implications that
00:22:58
this policy is newer than his stems from efforts that began under present by nor the transportation
00:23:03
secretary Pete Buttigieg is demonstrably false it's been on the FAA who's you know it's on the
00:23:09
website the FAA's website it was their own 2013 it was there for the entirety what I read it was there
00:23:13
for the entirety of your administration so my question is why didn't you change the policy during
00:23:18
your first administration I changed it I changed the Obama policy and we had a very good policy and
00:23:23
then Biden came in and he changed it so Julia he's just seething at the very fact that his sloppy
00:23:30
response is being subjected to even minimal questioning yeah I mean that's that's a that's a person
00:23:39
who does not understand their role but also has so clearly surrounded himself with people
00:23:46
and an immediate diet that only kisses the ring there's a moment in the press conference that I
00:23:55
thought was interesting Sean Duffy is the new secretary of transportation I think he got him in
00:23:59
yesterday he also had been on an MTV show and but also was a congressman so he's not a not he's not
00:24:09
totally unserious like he ran for office and it was interesting because he clearly understood while
00:24:19
standing there at least in my view he clearly understood that that that Trump was was not fit to
00:24:30
lead a press conference of this nature when he comes up to speak and to I think set try to reset
00:24:37
some of the facts and allegations made he says as Trump demands that his people say you know the
00:24:43
president is all over this and you know and all resources will will be delivered but also he tries to
00:24:51
fix it and and makes it clear that we don't know the reason why and also makes it clear what the
00:24:59
investigation is going to look at and how it will unfold that is a responsible thing to say I have no
00:25:08
sympathy for secretary Duffy at all but it was a moment when you when I could see and I'm just
00:25:16
reading the tea leaves a person realized that Trump 2.0 isn't better than Trump 1.0 he's he's worse
00:25:24
very much like the covid period as well where his underlings had to step forward and make what he
00:25:33
said sound somehow responsible and just lie in everybody's faces about what they have just seen
00:25:39
from the entirely unfit guy at the top yeah can I say one thing about before we end about
00:25:45
not just the horror of this and watching it as we do watching Trump and the tragedy to all those
00:25:52
victims but this country does have real issues about things like disasters and recovery say in
00:26:02
Los Angeles or North Carolina and in our aviation system which has had too many near misses this is
00:26:09
you know there there are there are flashing red lights where a moment like this could also be an
00:26:17
opportunity to look at the future of aviation aviation safety to protect the American public that
00:26:26
window was about three hours a Trump just closed it and that that is the long term consequences of
00:26:33
having a president like this is we are we are he is not serious and therefore the government won't
00:26:41
be serious about the lessons that we could learn from this well this is a very early flashing light
00:26:48
about what's coming down the pike and it's going to get a whole lot worse juliet kiam thanks so
00:26:54
much for coming on with us thank you so much you've been listening to the daily blast with me your
00:27:01
host Greg sergeant the daily blast is a new republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler on
00:27:07
the DSR network
00:27:11
you
00:27:14
you
00:27:16
[BLANK_AUDIO]
