In the 10 days since President Donald Trump has taken office, he has already visited multiple domestic disaster sites in addition to a plate full of other second-term priorities.
After the recent crash involving a military helicopter and an American Airlines jet, the president once again demonstrated a level of media availability that stands in stark contrast to his predecessor.
When one reporter asked whether he was planning to visit the site of the crash, however, a seemingly perturbed Trump offered a somewhat terse reply, per HuffPost:
“I have a plan to visit, not the site because — you tell me, what’s the site? The water?” Trump told reporters at the White House. “You want me to go swimming?”
The midair collision happened Wednesday night as an American Airlines jet was about to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. There were 64 people on the plane and three military personnel in the helicopter.
Officials said there were no survivors, and by Thursday morning authorities had pulled 28 bodies from the frigid Potomac River.
The moment was widely shared on social media, with many commenters defending Trump’s dismissive reply:
That’s funny. He’s so good at this.
— MAZE (@mazemoore) January 30, 2025
This man says it like it is
— World In Focus (@worldinfocuss) January 30, 2025
I’m liking this unfiltered DJT
— Dave (@daveKrempel) January 30, 2025
There were plenty of other notable moments from Trump’s remarks on the deadly D.C. crash, as the New York Post reported:
The president’s White House press briefing came a day after American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, DC. Wednesday night. There were no survivors of the deadly crash, which claimed 67 lives.
During the press conference, Trump railed against former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for allegedly lowering the standards for air traffic controllers through diversity programs.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that, only the highest aptitude, the highest intellect, and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers,” Trump said.
“And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level.”
The president said Democratic administrations “put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program” and ripped former President Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as a “disaster” who had “a good line of bulls—” and ran the FAA “right into the ground with his diversity.”
Here’s a clip of a clash between Trump and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins:
