President Donald Trump continued his attacks on his Democratic predecessors and diversity programs late Thursday afternoon, signing a presidential memo that linked “decisions” made by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s administrations, and DEI initiatives, to Wednesday’s mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and a regional commercial airplane. The President’s memo offers no practical evidence they played a role. Sixty-seven people are believed to have died, and no one is believed to have survived.

Trump’s memo orders “a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.”

Axios reports that the “order shows Trump is doubling down on his claim, without evidence, that DEI policies were a factor in the crash. His memo explicitly mentions ‘diversity equity and inclusion,’ and reflects how anti-DEI efforts are a centerpiece of his second administration’s policy.”

READ MORE: ‘That Is So Dangerous’: RFK Jr. Blasted for Claim on Black Immunity and Vaccines

Critics, including U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), say the incident took place on Trump’s watch, after he allowed the head of the FAA to reportedly resign under pressure, and gutted a critical aviation safety group Trump also just fired the head of the TSA, and placed a hiring freeze on nearly all government positions.

Trump’s press conference today, blaming the FAA’s hiring of women and black people for the crash – was disgusting. Especially after he just threw the FAA into chaos, ousting the Administrator and the whole FAA safety board.

He’s in charge. This happened on his watch. pic.twitter.com/UiVGwmsTEh

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 30, 2025

One Federal Aviation Administration traffic controller was assigned to both helicopters and planes when the deadly collision occurred, the FAA stated in a report.

“The report, reviewed by The New York Times, said that one controller was communicating with both helicopters and planes. Those jobs are typically assigned to two people, not one,” The Times reported. “Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,’ according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.”

Staffing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport “has been understaffed for years,” and “nearly a third below targeted staff levels,” The Times reports, citing “years of employee turnover and tight budgets.”

RELATED: Trump’s Claim Diversity and Democrats ‘Could Have’ Caused Deadly Collision Draws Backlash

Calling the deadly collision a “shocking event” Trump’s memo says it “follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”

A CNN fact check found that a congressional law from 1973 “aimed to increase federal hiring of qualified people with disabilities.”

“The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude,” Trump’s memo alleges. He claimed “the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.”

The memo claims, “During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence,” but a CNN fact check reveals that “Trump’s FAA used the same language about hiring people with disabilities [that] he’s now blasting.”

“During his Thursday press conference,” CNN reported, “President Donald Trump repeatedly suggested there was a link between the tragedy and diversity hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“It’s most important to note that Trump provided no evidence whatsoever that there was any such connection. But it’s also worth noting that some of Trump’s specific assertions about the FAA’s push to hire people with disabilities were either inaccurate or missing critical context about what happened during Trump’s own first presidency.”

Political strategist Donna Brazil noted, “Without an investigation or the recovery of all of the souls that have fallen, Trump inflicts partisan damage without proof or evidence.”

Insanity — Trump signs an order blaming Biden and DEI for flight dangers pic.twitter.com/rsrxItGEkP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2025

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘This Is His Responsibility’: Trump’s Response to Deadly Mid-Air Collision Stuns Critics

Image via Reuters

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, faced grilling from Democrats and at least one Republican on day two of his Senate confirmation hearing. One Democrat declared RFK Jr.’s views on vaccinations and immunity “dangerous” after he claimed Black people have stronger immune systems than White people.

“You said the following, and I quote: ‘We should not be giving Black people the same vaccine schedule that’s given to Whites, because their immune system is better than ours.’ Can you please explain what you meant?” U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) asked (video below), after quoting Kennedy’s remarks about Black people and vaccines back to him.

“There’s a series of studies, I think most of them by [Andrew] Pollard that the particular antigens that show that Blacks have a much stronger reaction. There’s differences in reaction to different products by different races,” Kennedy responded, a claim he has made before.

“So what different vaccine schedule would you say, I should have received?” Senator Alsobrooks asked.

READ MORE: Trump’s Claim Diversity and Democrats ‘Could Have’ Caused Deadly Collision Draws Backlash

“Well, I mean, the Pollard article suggests that Blacks need fewer antigens —”

“This is so dangerous,” the Maryland Democrat Senator replied. “Mr. Kennedy with all due respect, that is so dangerous.”

“Your voice would be a voice that parents would listen to, that is so dangerous,” Alsobrooks continued. “I will be voting against your nomination because your views are dangerous to our state and to our country.”

On the website for his anti-vaccine non-profit’s website, Kennedy made that and other similar statements.

“As it turns out, blacks have a much more robust immune system than whites,” the website’s exact transcript of Kennedy’s remarks during an interview reads. “We now know this because there was a guy called Andrew Pollard who is on their side, and he works for the Mayo Clinic, and he’s done these studies. And what he’s found out is that blacks only need half of the antigen that whites do. So if you’re trying to immunize black for measles, if you’re trying to immunize a white person, you need to give a certain amount of the measles virus to them, the dead virus or the live virus. For a black, they’ll get the same immune response if they get half that now.”

READ MORE: ‘This Is His Responsibility’: Trump’s Response to Deadly Mid-Air Collision Stuns Critics

The Washington Post this week reported that Kennedy “has repeatedly disparaged vaccines, falsely linked them to autism and argued that White and Black people should have separate vaccination schedules, according to a Washington Post review of his public statements from recent years.”

The Post, highlighting Kennedy’s remarks that Black people’s immune systems are better than White people’s, reported: “Several experts said no scientific basis exists to support that claim.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

ALSOBROOKS: You said 'we should not be giving Black people the same vaccine schedule that is given to whites.' Can you please explain what you meant?

RFK Jr: There's a series of studies …

ALSOBROOKS: What different schedule would you say I should've recevied? pic.twitter.com/rlTmsCo48j

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 30, 2025

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

As first responders work to recover bodies from the freezing waters of the Potomac, President Donald Trump, without evidence, suggested that diversity hiring and Democrats were at least partly responsible for Wednesday night’s mid-air collision that claimed over 60 lives. His politicized remarks from the podium on Thursday have sparked widespread outrage, compounding the grief of many Americans grappling with the nation’s first fatal aviation disaster since 2009. In addition to “DEI,” Trump also baselessly pointed fingers at former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

The NTSB has only just begun its investigation, which could take years to determine the cause of the deadly collision.

“Minutes after saying the airport collision shouldn’t be politicized, and that it should bring Americans together in common cause, Trump blames Democrats and DEI for the deadly incident,” The Wall Street Journal’s Alex Ward reported, which is in line with the paper’s reporting.

RELATED: ‘This Is His Responsibility’: Trump’s Response to Deadly Mid-Air Collision Stuns Critics

“I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office,” CNN reported Trump said, at a press conference to address the horrific disaster that has shaken many Americans. “And here’s one, the FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce said ‘they want them in, and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so. This was January 14, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program,” Trump said.

Q: Are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring?

Pres. Trump: It just could have been…you have to go by brain power. You have to go by psychological quality…these are very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden. pic.twitter.com/IpaxJ12IBm

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 30, 2025

Trump claimed that during his first administration, “I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary.” He also claimed that when he “left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.”

“I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level,” Trump alleged, NBC News reported, adding, “their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.”

The President also lashed out at former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, calling him “a disaster,”

“He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit,” Trump announced live in-air, before alleging Secretary Buttigieg ran the Transportation Department “right into the ground with his diversity.”

President Donald Trump puts blame for the Reagan International Airport tragedy on Pete Buttigieg, who is not in office.

“He was a disaster of a mayor, he ran his city into the ground and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit.” pic.twitter.com/tflJhppjoY

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) January 30, 2025

Buttigieg quickly responded.

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

“Despicable,” the former Transportation Secretary wrote on social media. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”

The New York Times’ Peter Baker observed, “Trump’s move to blame the crash on diversity reflects his instinct to immediately frame major events through his political lens whether facts fit or not. After the terrorist attack in New Orleans, he blamed immigration even though the attacker was a US citizen born in Texas.”

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis remarked, “The commander-in-chief should be offering condolences and competent solutions rather blaming women and people of color for everything that goes wrong. Racism and misogyny in response to a national tragedy.”

“This isn’t about making America great again,” commented Professor of Law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. “It makes me profoundly sad that an American tragedy, which requires investigation to assess the cause and prevent future accidents has been politicized & shoehorned into Trump’s anti-inclusion policy for anyone who isn’t a sis [sic] white christian nationalist male or supporter. It makes me sadder that so many people still don’t understand that he’s trying to drive wedges in between us to accumulate more power for himself.”

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison added, “Words can’t express my disgust. In a moment in which you should lead the nation in mourning and navigating a tragedy this heartless imbecile finds ways to divide.”

“It’s one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracy theories, it’s another for the president of the United States to throw out idle speculation as bodies are still being recovered and families still being notified,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, as CBS News reported. “It just turns your stomach.”

Others pointed to a memo posted to the White House’s website, titled (in all-caps), “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Ends DEI Madness And Restores Excellence And Safety Within The Federal Aviation Administration.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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