Donald Trump and Elon Musk are under fire after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez linked their aviation safety cuts to the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C. AOC accused Trump of gutting key officials and forcing air traffic controllers into buyouts, fueling backlash as investigations into the midair collision continue.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump and officials from his administration caused an immediate outrage when they blamed the catastrophic plane crash that occurred in Washington, District of Columbia, on "diversity" programs that were introduced at the Federal Aviation Administration.
The tragedy, which was caused by a collision with an Army helicopter in midair, is still being investigated; however, there is no evidence that has emerged to substantiate the claim that diversity programs played a part in the crash.
In point of fact, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat of New York) pointed out in a heated manner on X that President Trump decided to remove critical aviation safety professionals from their positions just a few days earlier, following the suggestion of the tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Ocasio-Cortez has stated that she is responsible for representing workers at JFK Airport in addition to LaGuardia Airport. At the same time that the already understaffed air traffic controllers received Trump's "buyout" this week along with a one-week deadline to decide, she reaffirmed her claim that Trump destroyed the Aviation Safety Committee the previous week.
Finally, AOC came to the conclusion that it's not DEI, but rather Trump and Elon.
The "buyout" offer, which closely resembles a mass layoff policy that Musk implemented when he took over the Twitter platform before rebranding it, is not a buyout in the strictest sense; rather, it is an offer to delay being fired for eight months in exchange for not having to comply with the new return-to-office policies that have been implemented by the Trump administration, The RRaw Story shares
The idea that diversity programs have been responsible for lowering aviation safety standards is a conspiracy theory that has been circulating among members of the far right for years. In particular, it garnered a lot of attention in the past year when the MAGA youth activist Charlie Kirk made the unfounded assertion that Black pilots were being hired in violation of qualification rules.
At one point, even the Trump team itself was concerned that Kirk's rantings on the matter might make it more difficult for them to win over people of African descent.