Trump launched FAA diversity program to hire people with disabilities

President Donald Trump condemned a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiative to hire people with disabilities in the wake of the Washington, D.C., plane collision, despite a similar initiative being launched during his first term in office.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and the FAA for comment via email outside of regular working hours.

Why It Matters

Trump pushed to remove all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from federal programs upon his return to office. During a Thursday press conference, Trump suggested diversity hiring programs were to blame for the collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, but did not provide any evidence to support his claims.

What to Know

A regional passenger jet from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter as it was approaching Ronald Reagan Airport on Wednesday, with both aircraft falling into the Potomac River.

All 64 passengers onboard the PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 jet and the three flying in the Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk military helicopter are believed to have died in the accident.

Trump blamed the disaster on diversity programs, which he said were put in place during the Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations.

Speaking during Thursday’s press conference, Trump read from a January 2024 Fox News article, which he mistakenly said was from this month, about an FAA program to actively recruit people with “severe” disabilities.

However, the FAA launched a similar initiative in 2019 during Trump’s first term in office to actively hire people with disabilities.

The FAA announced in April 2019 that it would launch a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.

The FAA stated that those trained under the program would receive the same “rigorous consideration” in terms of aptitude, medical, and security qualifications as those doing standard air traffic controller job applications.

The FAA continued to promote the disability program in the final months of Trump’s first term in office.

The policy of actively recruiting people with “severe” disabilities has also existed for more than a decade.

The list of disabilities mentioned in the January 2024 Fox News article and read by Trump on Thursday includes “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”

This exact wording has existed on the FAA website since at least February 2013, according to fact-checking website Snopes. It remained on the site throughout Trump’s first term.

Trump also suggested at the press conference that the program focused on hiring air traffic controllers, despite the FAA not stating this.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order initiating the “Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety” in the wake of the Reagan National Airport disaster, which includes implementing only merit-based hiring.

The order stated the Biden administration “egregiously rejected” merit-based hiring and specifically recruited individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities in the FAA.

What People Are Saying

President Donald Trump during Thursday’s press conference: “We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. What matters is intellect, talent. The word talent—they have to be talented, naturally talented, geniuses. Brilliant people have to be in those positions [air traffic controllers], and their lives are actually shortened, very substantially shortened, because of the stress, where you have many, many planes coming into one target, and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it.”

Trump’s Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety Executive Order: “On my second day in office, I ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion, elevating safety and ability as the paramount standard. Yesterday’s devastating accident tragically underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA.”

The American Association of People with Disabilities in a statement: “FAA employees with disabilities did not cause last night’s tragic plane crash. DEI hiring did not cause last night’s plane crash. Using this tragedy to push the president’s anti-diversity hiring agenda is inappropriate and wrong. It does nothing to make Americans safer.”

Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer, posted on X, formerly Twitter: “I just watched President Trump’s news conference on the heartbreaking, horrific accident at DCA, and I have to tell you: It’s one thing for internet pundits to spew conspiracy theories. It’s another for the president of the United States of America to throw out idle speculation even as victims are still being recovered, and families are still being notified. It turns your stomach.”

The FAA said in a statement: “FAA investigators are supporting the NTSB-led investigation of Wednesday night’s midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport. The NTSB is leading the investigation and will provide all updates. We cannot comment on any aspect of open investigations. The FAA will quickly take any actions necessary based on evidence from the investigation.”

What Happens Next

Trump has ordered Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and top FAA officials to review “all hiring decisions” and safety protocol changes made during the Biden administration following Wednesday’s aircraft collision.

An investigation to determine the cause of the accident is underway.