By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 13th, 2020
It was “ the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in nearly 25 years,” according to the Associated Press.
But Donald Trump knows only one thing about the deadly crash between a U.S. Army helicopter and an airliner that smashed into one another close to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. in late January: His policies – such as showing the door to several officials who had helped oversee our air traffic controllers, and ensured they followed proper procedure – couldn’t possibly have made us less safe.
Every person on the two aircraft died in the crash, according to investigators.
Just “hours after a plane crashed over the Potomac River a few miles from the White House,” according to PolitiFact, “President Donald Trump held a press briefing in which he blamed his predecessors’ diversity hiring policies as a possible reason for the accident.”
“I changed the Obama policy, and we had a very good policy,” Trump claimed to reporters. “And then when I came in two days, three days ago, I signed a new order, bringing it to the highest level of intelligence.”
It’s Trump. Of course he’s lying.
In fact, in his first administration, Trump became a champion of Obama’s policy.
Obama issued an executive order to solidify this hiring initiative. Adopted in 2010, it helped those with “targeted disabilities” find jobs in government. Obama pointed out that such people were not properly represented at federal agencies and bureaus …
“Targeted disabilities” is defined by federal government parlance as including problems with “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
In 2016, the Electoral College gave the presidency to Trump, after he won key battleground states but lost the popular vote. Trump first presidency started in 2017, and ended in 2021.
But Trump continued the Obama policy of hiring those with “targeted disabilities,” and placing them in government – including at least one instance in which the Trump Administration hired “up to 20 people” to work at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which of course oversees our nation’s skies.
All 20 jobs were for air traffic controllers.
So, Trump himself had no problem hiring people with “targeted disabilities” to work at the FAA as air traffic controllers, as long as they proved they could handle the job via rigorous testing, and their particular malady wasn’t something that would keep them from performing the job well. The same is true for both Obama and Biden.
We know all of this, because the first Trump Administration’s action is still up and remains a part of the FAA archive.
Dated April 11th, 2019 – in the middle Trump’s first term – the president was then proud to adopt the Obama initiative for the FAA.
“The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations,” read the release.
“A key focus for the FAA’s Office of Civil Rights is to identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce,” the first Trump Administration happily added.
“The FAA will enroll up to 20 people in the Aviation Development Program. They will train for up to one year at 10 Air Route Traffic Control Centers throughout the U.S.,” the release continued.
“The candidates in this program will receive the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening for air traffic controller jobs,” the Trump Administration was quick to add.
“Participants in the program will receive up to one year of experience in an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) with the potential to be appointed to a temporary ATCS position at the FAA Academy,” stated the press release.
It appears the Trump Administration knew it was fine to hire these people. Trump also knew that – as his own press release declares – every candidate in the program received “the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening for air traffic controller jobs.”
And, according to AFP (Agencie France Press), “the FAA under Trump continued to promote the so-called Aviation Development Program in 2020, shortly before he lost his reelection bid to Biden.”
The 2020 Trump promotion was quite clear in its intention.
“The FAA’s Aviation Development Program provides Persons with Targeted Disabilities the opportunity to gain experience as a trainee air traffic controller. Learn about the program and register for a free, virtual information session on 9/22 from 12-1 PM ET,” said the post, now archived on Elon Musk’s social platform X (formerly Twitter).
AFP added that “the FAA’s 2020 Aviation Safety Workforce Plan,” doubled down on its pledge that it would ‘continue to promote and support the hiring of people with disabilities and targeted disabilities.’ ”
And it was just as true for Biden, who appears to have continued the initiative.
PolitiFact quoted Michael McCormick, who in 2015 retired from the FAA. Among other things, his job included the hiring of flight controllers.
He has worked under both Democrat and Republican presidents. McCormick declared that “most of the conditions Trump listed would not meet the agency’s medical standards.”
“The decision to hire a controller is solely based upon aptitude testing, medical certification and security investigation,” McCormick said.
Only “after being sworn in for his second term,” added PolitiFact, did “Trump on Jan. 20 and Jan. 22 [sign] executive orders aimed at shutting down diversity programs in the federal government, including the FAA.”
But it seems that only ended the hiring program. It doesn’t appear to have removed anyone from his or her job if they were still gainfully employed by the federal government.
Tomorrow, we’ll release part two of our report on this business. It looks at the U.S. record on plane crashes over the last several years – the one undeniable means of getting to the truth on this matter.
The record reveals that these hiring initiatives are not only based – in part – on a 1971 Supreme Court ruling that banned discriminatory hiring practices and has been the law of this land for more than 50 years, but that the Obama effort to hire those with “targeted disabilities” worked just fine for him, for Trump, for Biden … and for us.
That’s because the numbers show that – under Obama’s executive order – the U.S. skies became a much safer place to fly.
Until this year, it seems.
