On Wednesday night, American Eagle Flight 5342 collided midair with an Army helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport, killing 67 people. About a half-day later, Donald Trump addressed the tragedy in the White House press briefing room.
What should’ve been a straightforward exercise — update the public and extend his sympathies — proved too challenging for the Republican president. While the recovery effort was ongoing in the Potomac River, and first responders pulled victims of the crash from the water, Trump decided to blame the disaster on Joe Biden. And Barack Obama. And Pete Buttigieg. And the FAA. And unnamed pilots. And perhaps most importantly, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs within the government.
To be sure, the president had no idea what he was talking about. The investigation was just getting started; he had few relevant facts; and he didn’t even try to substantiate his rantings with evidence. But as families mourned, Trump used his White House platform to put on an ugly, partisan, cheap and racist show.
It was, by any fair measure, obscene.
And then he kept the depravity going. Hours after his display in the briefing room, the president signed an executive memorandum in the Oval Office, which claimed the crash “follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration.”
In what way were the Democratic administration’s policies “likely illegal”? Trump didn’t say. He never does. On the contrary, the Republican has spent years using the phrase “likely illegal” as a synonym for “stuff I don’t like.”
Asked by a reporter about whether he intends to visit the site of the tragedy, the president responded with sarcasm.
Trump says he doesn’t “have a plan” to visit the site where 67 died: “What's the site? The water?"
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2025-01-30T21:46:33.565Z
Complicating matters for Trump, his posturing and finger-pointing wasn’t just crass, it was also badly at odds with reality. The New York Times published a fact-check report on the president’s comments, highlighting a series of claims that were plainly false. The Washington Post published a related piece, noting that Trump’s current complaints were attacking the policies adopted by his own administration during his first term.
I won’t pretend to have any special insights into why the president behaved this way in the immediate aftermath of a deadly disaster. It’s possible, for example, that Trump simply has one playbook, and he responds to every tragedy with the same blame-everyone-but-me tactics. It’s also possible that Trump is hoping to distract the public with nonsense, hoping that people won’t notice that he waited until after the crash to appoint a new FAA director and gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee immediately after his inauguration. Whatever his motivations, there’s no reason to believe the president will improve anytime soon. The morning after his revolting antics, Trump turned to his social media platform to make yet another assessment of the disaster that’s still being scrutinized. “The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” the Republican wrote. “It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” It’s going to be a long four years.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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