President Donald Trump’s statements surrounding the midair collision that claimed 67 lives came under fire Thursday in a brutal fact-check session that flagged three key points as misleading.
“Here's a reality check,” CNN’s René Marsh told viewers after Trump delivered his theories for who was responsible for the crash.
Marsh first picked apart Trump’s claim that former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden undermined aviation safety standards with diversity, equity and inclusion hiring initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration.
“That is just misleading,” Marsh said Thursday. “Now, we should note that this administration recently wiped the federal websites, many of them of any mention of DEI. But when you do an internet archive search the FAA’s DEI policy has actually been on the agency's website and actually been in effect since at least 2013, and certainly during the first Trump administration.”
Marsh next tackled Trump’s assertion that air traffic controllers can work despite dealing with serious health issues and disabilities.
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“They want them in, they want them in, so that they can be air traffic controllers,” Trump said in the White House briefing room Thursday, according to CNN.
“That claim is simply misleading,” Marsh said.
The CNN national correspondent also noted that Trump went on to add that the FAA website has down a long list of disabilities, including complete paralysis and epilepsy.
“And if you have any of those, you qualify for the position of controller, and that too is misleading,” Marsh said of Trump's statements. “Look, he is pulling language that did exist on the FAA’s DEI website. That language is certainly there. But they were speaking about a broader commitment to not discriminating against people with disabilities across the federal government. And as we know, there are laws on the books that make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of disabilities.”
She added that in addition to attending a formal academy, an air traffic controller must also pass a medical examination, a security investigation, and an FAA air traffic pre-employment skills assessment.
"The bottom line is, if you don't have the skills to pass through the air traffic control academy, you are not directing planes in the tower," Marsh said. "So that was misleading."
Watch the clip below or at this link:
