If I feel like someone's doing the wrong thing, I’ll call it out regardless of affiliation — Democrat, Republican, Green Party, Tea Party, Whig Party… You name it.
And today I’m seeing a lot of warped opinion-making in the aftermath of this airplane crash. Personally, I think it’s frustrating and insulting to the families who lost loved ones yesterday.
Much of the garbage comes from mainstream media outlets, social media trolls, and politicians. They all want to use a tragedy to serve political ends while the bodies are still floating in the ice-cold Potomac.
Let’s get our facts straight.
First: We don’t know exactly what happened with the airplane crash. And it’s going to take time to figure it out. Many aviation crashes take years to sort through, and right now it’s too quick to draw conclusions.
Second: The United States hasn’t had a major commercial airplane accident since 2009.
So while air travel has its challenges — and they ought to be addressed — when it comes to safety, the FAA handles around 16 million flights annually and 853 million passengers travel on domestic flights every year.
To put this into perspective, studies show that there are .003 deaths per 100 million miles traveled in US airways, compared to US highways, which is .57 per 100 million miles traveled. So this crash was a real anomaly.
Just because it's rare doesn’t make the event any less of a tragedy. But in the aftermath of an event like this, it’s easy to rush to confirm your own biases rather than to take a step back, take a breath, and let professionals carry out a thorough investigation.
We saw that recently with the Bourbon Street terror attack. Everyone wants a ray of the spotlight, and people jump at the chance to use tragedy to advance political beliefs.
Right now, it’s about gathering information. Then you process it and then release a unified statement to the general public. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But without fail, that’s what it becomes. And both sides of the aisle are guilty of this behavior.
That brings us to my criticism of President Trump because I believe the way he addressed this issue was wrong. Without a lick of evidence, he started spouting off that what happened yesterday occurred because of DEI.
Look—if you look at the history of what I’ve said on this show, you know I’m no fan of DEI initiatives and mandates. And it might come out that DEI had a part to play in the crash, although I doubt it in this case.
But my whole point isn’t that right now we have a very limited picture of what happened last night.
The President certainly knows more than I do about this situation. But from what he communicated, his claims seemed rash and baseless.
He even ended his off-hand comments by saying the right thing, stating, “It’s still under investigation.”
And he’s right. Things need to reveal themselves, then we take the necessary remedial measures to make changes to reduce risk.
But now just isn’t the time for political attacks. And I don’t get the exigency of Trump’s comments in the aftermath of such a tragic event.
I had some callers on this show telling me that my criticism of President Trump is some sweeping condemnation. For anybody who knows me, you know that's laughable. I just refuse to be a sycophant, even to someone who I often agree with.
Right now we don’t know that this crash was caused by the actions of President Biden’s cabinet and the FAA’s DEI policy. Right now, that’s not a credible argument, and Trump’s handling of this crash isn’t credible leadership. You need the evidence for that before you go talking about anything. Then come out and back up your claims.
Until then, his comments just aren't necessary.