As the nation begins to grapple with and mourn what reportedly are more than 60 deaths from a late Wednesday night mid-air collision over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, some are also grappling with the response from President Donald Trump.

“No one is believed to have survived the midair collision between an American Airlines jet plane and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter last night in the Washington, DC, area, the fire chief said Thursday. President Donald Trump is expected to address the tragedy this morning at the White House Briefing Room,” CNN reported.

The White House put out a statement from President Trump just before 11 PM Wednesday that read: “I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise.”

READ MORE: ‘Crisis Deepening’: Funding Freeze Remains White House Says After OMB Memo Pulled

But just after midnight, on his Truth Social website, Donald Trump shared this message.

“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Critics are blasting Trump for his Truth Social post.

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte posted screenshots of both statements and commented: “What people in the WH want you to think the president thinks,” and, “What the president actually thinks.”

What people in the WH want you to think the president thinks:

What the president actually thinks: pic.twitter.com/rD7h05g8fR

— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) January 30, 2025

“One of the paradoxes of Trump’s conception of the presidency: he somehow requires absolute and unchecked power, but also seems to think of himself as a passive, tut-tutting observer when the government over which he has that absolute power fails in any way,” observed New York Times opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen, in response to Trump’s social media post. Polgreen is a co-author of the recent Times piece, “Trump Is at His Absolute Worst in a Crisis.”

Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot and former Democratic political candidate responded to Trump’s remarks: “This is not what our president should be doing or saying right now.”

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“The President is asking rhetorical questions about what federal gov’t aircraft was doing, as if someone else should have the answers. This is his responsibility. If he doesn’t know the answers, it’s because he and his unqualified DoD & DoT appointees are incompetent,” declared attorney Max Kennerly.

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias added: “One of Trump’s weirdest bits from Covid was constantly acting like someone else was the president and he’s just a prominent guy raising questions about what the government is doing.”

Others pointed to Trump’s recent actions.

“First aviation disaster in US since 2009 and if it had been under Biden,” Moe Davis, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, educator, politician, and former administrative law judge wrote. He add that Trump “would yell incompetence and say wouldn’t happen if he was President.”

Davis also noted that the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was “pushed out” by Elon Musk, and that “Trump killed” the Aviation Safety Committee, “fired” the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and “froze air traffic control hiring.”

On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported, “The Federal Aviation Administration’s leader stepped down on Jan. 20, months after Elon Musk demanded that he quit,” and noted that the “move by Michael Whitaker means the FAA has no Senate-confirmed leader for one of the biggest crises in its history because he quit before Donald Trump took office.”

Back in September, Musk tweeted that Whitaker “needs to resign.”

According to the Associated Press, last week “President Donald Trump moved quickly to remake the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday, firing the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard before their terms are up and eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.”

The AP explained that the “aviation security committee, which was mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, will technically continue to exist but it won’t have any members to carry out the work of examining safety issues at airlines and airports. Before Tuesday, the group included representatives of all the key groups in the industry — including the airlines and major unions — as well as members of a group associated with the victims of the PanAm 103 bombing. The vast majority of the group’s recommendations were adopted over the years.”

Stephanie Bernstein, whose husband was killed in the bombing and served on the committee, told the AP, “I naively thought, ‘oh they’re not going to do anything in the new administration, to put security at risk — aviation security at risk.’ But I’m not so sure.”

Shannon Watts, a speaker, organizer, and anti-gun violence activist wrote: “Dems should call for immediate hearings on what caused tonight’s plane crash, including the impact of the removal of FAA safety protocols and personnel.”

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The White House is making clear that even though the Trump budget office has rescinded its highly confusing and controversial memo declaring a massive and widespread freeze on possibly trillions of federal funding dollars, the actual funding freeze itself is still in effect and will be “rigorously implemented.” The rescission of the memo reportedly was merely a tactic to “get around” a court injunction.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” wrote White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Wednesday afternoon, after celebrations from the left, believing the memo’s rescission meant the policy was also rescinded. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

A federal court had placed a temporary, partial “stay,” or pause, on the OMB memo.

“This is just more confusion and chaos,” New York State Attorney General Letitia James said in response to Leavitt. “We will be in court this afternoon.”

READ MORE: ‘This Job Is Life and Death for Kids!’: RFK Jr. Blasted in Heated Conformation Hearing

“On the White House rescinding the memo,” reported CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs, “aides say it is not an end to the intended freeze of federal funding that clashes with Trump’s worldviews. It’s meant to get around the court injunction.”

“Bingo,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the more vocal critics of the Trump White House, responded. “Crisis is deepening, not abating. They are trying to ignore the court order.”

“The funding shutdown is still in place. They are just doing it without the piece of paper,” he added.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) added, “So they reversed the memo and then sent out this? Chaos.”

Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich reported on the White House’s apparent reasoning, telling viewers Wednesday afternoon, “Karoline Leavitt said in the briefing that this [OMB memo] was targeted at things like the $50 million that went to, uh, she said, condoms in Gaza. Initiatives like that are still subject to  this freeze, anything that’s impacted by those executive orders, there were, I think, seven listed in the memo, but in the interim, the OMB has pulled back that memo itself, because that barred communication between OMB and agency heads and what, in fact, was impacted.”

The OMB memo specifically noted programs like the “Green New Deal” would be frozen, even though the Green New Deal was never fully passed or signed into law.

RELATED: ‘Screwed Up Bigly’: Stephen Miller Slammed After Calling OMB Funding Freeze a ‘Dumb Media Hoax’

The White House’s claims about $50 million being sent to Gaza for condoms — repeated on live television Wednesday afternoon by President Donald Trump in a signing ceremony of the Laken Riley Act — also appears to be false.

“According to a comprehensive report issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza,” The Guardian reported Tuesday. “In fact, the accounting shows, there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, was sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.”

“As Dan Evon of the non-profit News Literacy Project points out: ‘It’s also worth noting that this is not a Biden program. Trump, too, spent funds on sending contraceptives around the globe. In 2019, about $40m was spent on contraceptives by the Trump administration.’”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Heinrich: Levitt said in the briefing that this was targeted at things like the $50 million that went to condoms in Gaza. Initiatives like that are still subject to this freeze, pic.twitter.com/kWB3kuGFNR

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 29, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Despair and Violence’: RFK Jr. Is a ‘Predator’ Says Caroline Kennedy in ‘Damning’ Video

Image via Reuters 

President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., faced sharp questioning and intense criticism from Democratic U.S. Senators during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Throughout the hearing, the right-wing anti-vaccine activist was pressed on his past statements, some of which he denied making, forcing challenges to the veracity and consistency of his positions.

One focal point of the hearing was Kennedy’s stance on abortion. During an exchange with Senator James Lankford (R-OK), Kennedy stated, “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me he wants to end late-term abortions, and he wants to protect conscience exemptions, and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions.”

RFK Jr: “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2m abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me he wants to end late term abortions.” pic.twitter.com/dfukL86OEr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2025

Those comments, one example of his shifting views, quickly made headlines Wednesday, given his prior positions on abortion.

RELATED: ‘Despair and Violence’: RFK Jr. Is a ‘Predator’ Says Caroline Kennedy in ‘Damning’ Video

Minutes before that, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) had pummeled Kennedy with his lengthy history of comments on a wide range of public policy issues — including abortion.

Bennet at one point asked, “did you say on a podcast, and I quote, I wouldn’t leave it — abortion — to the states. My belief is we should leave it to the woman. We shouldn’t have the government involved, even if it’s full term.”

“Did you say that, Mr. Kennedy?”

“Senator, I believe that every abortion is a tragedy —” Kennedy replied.

“Did you say it, Mr. Kennedy?”

Senator Bennet appeared gravely frustrated.

READ MORE: ‘Hostage Note’: Trump’s Funding Freeze Will Deliver ‘Greatest Harm’ Says OMB Veteran

“This matters!” he exclaimed loudly. “It doesn’t matter what you come here and say that isn’t true, that’s not reflective of what you really believe, that you haven’t said over decade after decade after decade, because unlike other jobs we’re confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the Denver Public school, and for families all over this country, that are suffering from living in the richest country of the world that can’t deliver basic health care and basic mental health here to them.”

“It’s too important for the games that you’re playing, Mr. Kennedy. And I hope my colleagues will say to the president, I have no influence over him. I hope my colleagues will say to the president out of 330 million Americans, we can do better than this.”

BENNET: Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?

RFK Jr: I probably did say that

BENNET: Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender

RFK Jr: No

BENNET: I have the record pic.twitter.com/tBhtL5yx4y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2025

Kennedy also falsely claimed the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with Medicaid and Medicare, both of which he repeatedly confused, wrongly naming one for the other.

The latest KFF Health Tracking Poll reports that “about eight in ten (82%) Americans hold favorable views of Medicare and more than three-fourths (77%) hold favorable views of Medicaid.”

Elsewhere, Kennedy was accused of making false statements on a wide variety of issues.

Mother Jones’ David Corn wrote: “It took RFK Jr. just six minutes into his opening statement to lie to Congress…and then came other falsehoods and misrepresentations.”

Democratic strategist and consultant Sawyer Hackett on social media observed: “We’re an hour into the RFK Jr hearing and he’s lied under oath about:

– claiming he’s ‘pro-vaccine’
– saying exposure to pesticides causes children to become trans
– being pro-choice as recently as last year
– saying he had ‘nothing to do’ with measles outbreak in America Samoa”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Image via Reuters