Senators Mark Kelly and Eric Schmitt offered differing takes on President Trump’s DEI-related commentary following the American Eagle plane crash in Washington, D.C.
Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, told “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker that Trump blaming the crash on diversity initiatives is “just poor leadership.”
“I really feel for the families on the plane, on the helicopter. It’s, you know – you know, these accidents are all often very complicated set of things that happen sequentially,” said Kelly, a former astronaut. “It’s often not one thing that causes a major aviation accident like this. I’ve been involved in accident investigations, particularly like with the – with space shuttle Columbia, you know, as an example, that we, we lost in 2003.”
“And to say that it has to do with the person’s color of their skin or their gender, I think that’s just poor leadership. And especially at a time where any president is supposed to be the consoler-in-chief, and not the person that’s going to try to divide us as a country, especially when you don’t have the appropriate information. And he clearly does not have the information in this case,” Kelly added.
In a separate segment, Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, offered his “thoughts and prayers” for the families of the victims of the crash, but added, “as it relates specifically to the president’s comments: This is nothing new, Kristen. This idea of emphasizing DEI across the federal government has real ramifications. I think the president said, and as you just mentioned, not related, specifically – we don’t know, the investigation will find out. But broadly speaking, DEI is poison.”
“It hurts recruiting. It hurts hiring. It hurts retention,” Schmitt continued. “The hours spent on these struggle sessions during training is hours you don’t spend on safety. And that’s just the fact. And it’s evidenced by the fact that 1,000 people sued the air traffic control for not being hired because of their race. It’s evidenced by the fact that you have, also, people who were fired from air traffic control and pilots not taking the COVID shot.”
On Thursday Trump placed blame for the crash on former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who he said ruined the Federal Aviation Administration with his believe that “diversity is integral to achieving.”
“He’s 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 bulls–t,” Trump said. “The Department of Transportation is [the] government agency charged with regulating civil aviation. Well, he runs it, 45,000 people, and he’s run it right into the ground with his diversity. So I had to say that it’s terrible.”
Trump also insisted — without any evidence — that “FAA says, ‘people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in, and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers.’”
You can watch the interviews with Sen. Kelly and Sen. Schmitt in the videos above.
