Standing before a mourning nation following a
tragic commercial airline crash that killed nearly 70 people in Washington, D.C., President Trump offered his somber condolences and said everyone was “searching for answers.”
He then insinuated,
without evidence, that diversity hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Administration — and the politics of his Democratic predecessors —
were to blame.
“I signed something last week that was an executive order, very powerful one, restoring the high standards of air traffic controllers — and others by the way,” Trump said. “We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are.”
In an instant, Trump had gone from consoling leader to partisan firebrand and turned a national tragedy into one more opportunity to push his favorite political narrative — that diversity-minded, “woke” liberalism is ruining the country and that he alone can end it, namely through unilateral executive orders from the Oval Office.
It was a breach of presidential decorum — and right in line with the rest of his tumultuous first two weeks back in the White House.