Well, that didn’t take long.
With first responders still recovering bodies from the Potomac River, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) wondered aloud during a Fox Business interview on Thursday whether diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring policies played “a role” in the deadly midair crash over Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Ogles’s reaction comes just weeks after MAGA pundits and right-wing politicians attempted to blame the devastating Southern California wildfires on the Los Angeles fire department having women in charge, describing it as “death by DEI.”
Meanwhile, hours after Ogles pondered the role DEI played in the crash, President Donald Trump outright blamed diversity hiring for the tragic accident during a press conference at the White House.
“We can’t have regular people doing that job. They won’t be able to do it. But we’ll restore faith in American air travel,” he declared. “I will have more to say about that. I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here is one. The FAA’s diversity push includes a focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psych psychiatric disabilities.”
He also took aim at former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, saying he ran “it right into the ground with this diversity” and that the FAA under Buttigieg’s watch “determined that the workforce was too white.”
Appearing on pro-Trump Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo’s morning show, Ogles was asked to react to the horrific collision between an American Airlines passenger plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter which has likely left 67 people dead. “You've been on the Homeland Security Committee – is there any reason to believe there is foul play here?” Bartiromo questioned.
“At this time, you hate to jump to any conclusions. Obviously, we will look at everything and check all the boxes,” the far-right Tennessee lawmaker said before immediately jumping to conclusions.
“I had just taken off from D.C. before the crash, and of course, it came across my cell phone and I saw it and was horrified, so prayers go out to all those impacted,” he declared. “To your point, I think you have to look at this with eyes wide open and see what happened. You know, human error, was it some sort of equipment failure? Did DEI play a role in this type of thing?”
Ogles continued: “So I think you look at it and go into it with eyes wide open and make sure something like this never happens. It’s been a number of years since we’ve had an aircraft collision such as this and so, again, prayers for all of those impacted.”
Bartiromo didn’t address Ogles’s suggestion that diversity hiring efforts may have caused the accident, instead moving on to a question about Trump signing the Laken Riley Act into law.
Ogles, like much of the Republican Party, has long demonized DEI and called for its elimination prior to Donald Trump’s election. In 2023, he introduced the Go Woke, Go Broke Act, which he said “would eliminate the Treasury Department’s grotesque Advisory Committee on Racial Equity and prevent the Treasury from re-establishing a similar committee moving forward.”
“Right now, hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent by the Treasury Department to promote the Biden Administration’s exclusionary and racist DEI ideology,” he said in a statement at the time. “The President is so focused on pitting people against each other on the basis of race, he has turned a blind eye to the failure of woke businesses and banks in the private sector.”
At the same time, as Ogles has raged against diversity hiring initiatives for supposedly giving unqualified people an advantage, the congressman has been outed for inflating his own resume over the years, falsely labeling himself as “an economist, a nationally recognized expert in tax policy and health care, a trained police officer, even an expert in international sex crimes.”
Amid the GOP’s concerted campaign to ban DEI, conservatives have regularly blamed disasters and tragic accidents on efforts to bring more racial and gender-based diversity to the workplace. Following a malfunction that caused a door to dislodge from a Boeing 737 flight last year, right-wing provocateurs pointed to DEI initiatives as the main culprit. “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified,’” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk exclaimed.
Additionally, after a cargo ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge and caused it to collapse, right-wing figures like Jack Posobiec shared memes linking the accident to DEI, wondering if people “still think it’s an accident.”
After taking office last week, Trump signed executive orders that froze hiring across the federal government, though it is unclear if it applies to the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic controllers as they may be included in exemptions for public safety and national security. Trump also terminated the FAA’s “hiring policy that prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over safety and efficiency.”
Democrats reacted to these orders last week by condemning “Trump’s dangerous freeze of air traffic control hiring,” prompting liberals and progressives to speculate that this may have led to the D.C. air collision. CNN pundit Bakari Sellers eventually deleted a tweet and apologized after sparking right-wing backlash for blaming Trump’s recent executive actions for the tragedy.
Meanwhile, a Mother Jones reporter noted on Wednesday night that before the crash, union representatives for federal air traffic controllers expressed concern to her that the combination of hiring freezes, resignations and payout offers to federal employees “could seriously endanger public safety.”
