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New Trump Memo Claims DEI, Obama, and Biden ‘Decisions’ Linked to Fatal Aviation Disaster
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.”
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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
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
