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Truth, Lies and the Real Path to Respect

Trump exploits the deadly tragedy near Reagan National to incite more hatred and scapegoat others

Steven Beschloss Jan 31

Donald Trump exits the White House press room yesterday. (Photo by Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump keeps proving he has no idea what it means to earn respect. Let’s rewind for a moment. Last Sunday, when he almost started a needless trade war with Colombia (as previously detailed), he made clear that he could not care less about working with a strategic ally that questions him.

You’ll remember that Colombian President Gustavo Petro would not repatriate Colombians deported from the U.S. after the Trump regime refused to treat them with dignity. Rather than pick up a phone and sort things out—and address Colombia’s request for humane treatment—Trump threatened an immediate 25 percent tariff and visa bans that eventually led the Colombian government to back down.

At the night’s conclusion, Trump’s sycophantic new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, summarized what the over-the-top retaliation accomplished: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again.” (I’d bet those words were demanded by Trump.)

That comment has been on my mind these last few days because it portrays the foolish mindset of Trump and his enablers—that publicly bullying a strategic ally leads to increased global respect, rather than increasing America’s new status as a laughingstock (one of Trump’s deepest fears) or, worse, a pariah. As if treating people and governments disrespectfully makes them respect you more.

What a witless notion. The only lesson that Trump was capable of taking from the Colombian experience is that he can achieve his goals by bullying, rejecting demands for dignity, then pushing a false narrative of what actually happened.

Yesterday he did it again.

The deadly mid-air crash near Reagan National Airport Wednesday night is a terrible, heartbreaking tragedy. Full stop. Any decent person recognizes that and feels for the families of the 67 souls who lost their lives after a Black Hawk military helicopter flying over the Potomac River crashed into an American Airlines jet arriving from Wichita, Kansas. This included 60 jet passengers, four crew members and three soldiers aboard the military helicopter.

But the remorseless sociopath who has been elected as commander-in-chief was not interested in providing consolation. Nor was he about to take responsibility for anything related to this deadly tragedy. Rather than respect the families’ grief and perform his presidential duty to let professionals do their jobs and find out the facts, Trump used his press conference to blame former Presidents Barrack Obama and Joe Biden and their “mediocre standards,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, diversity policies, and the intellectual and physical failings of air traffic controllers and other aviation officials.

Trump began the press conference reading a prepared text that acknowledged the tragedy. (Here’s the full transcript.) “This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history and a tragedy of terrible proportions,” he read. “As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly.”

But Trump couldn’t leave it there. Nope, not him. Recognizing that there will be multiple investigations that could raise doubts about his administration’s grave failure less than two weeks into his term, he quickly turned to his usual practice of blaming others. The buck never stops with him.

"The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing," Trump said, insisting that the FAA wanted people "with severe disabilities, the most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in and they want them—they can be air traffic controllers."

And when a reporter asked how at this early point—without any concrete knowledge of who was responsible or what exactly happened—he could blame diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices, Trump arrogantly said, “Because I have common sense.” He followed that by criticizing diversity hiring, his regime’s favorite target to explain the nation’s problems, like this: “Air traffic controllers have to be at the highest level of genius."

Get it? A crash like this wouldn’t happen if there were smart white people in every position. Never mind that air traffic controllers must pass rigorous tests to get these jobs. Never mind that FAA chief Michael Whitaker resigned on Jan. 20 after being pressured by Elon Musk to quit. Never mind that Trump gutted the Aviation Security Advisory Committee on Jan. 21 for the stated purpose of “eliminating the misuse of resources.”

And ignore the fact that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) needs to do careful, independent and non-politicized work before we can know what happened. “As part of any investigation we look at the human, the machine and the environment," the NTSB’s chair Jennifer Homendy told Reuters after hearing Trump’s remarks. "We look at facts in our investigation, and that will take some time."

And rather than rely on NTSB officials and other aviation professionals to lead this press conference, Trump chose to control the narrative and push misinformation and lies. The event had the awful echo of his COVID-19 presser in 2020 when he sidelined the medical experts and suggested that ultraviolet rays and bleach might stop the virus’ spread.

“Despicable,” responded Pete Buttigieg in a post on X. The former transportation secretary—one of the Democrats’ most talented communicators—went on:

As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.

President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.

Yes, it’s time for Trump to “show actual leadership.” But that’s a vain hope, of course. This bigoted man is untethered from factual reality. He will always scapegoat others instead of taking the time to find out the truth. Asked what evidence he had to support his claims that the crash stemmed from diversity hiring, he showed his utter unfitness for his job. “It just could have been,” he replied.

Let’s not sugarcoat things: It’s going to be a long four years. We have every reason to worry that official investigations into this crash or other coming disasters will be manipulated by the Trump administration to suppress any findings that this president ever does anything wrong. But the more Trump lies and runs from the truth of this tragedy and others to come, the more conscientious people must investigate the truth and speak out.

Trump is filling his government with sycophants and incompetents who will refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and insist their boss can do no wrong. As the latest nominees—including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and Russell Vought—work to help their vengeful boss dismantle our democratic institutions, we must identify and assert both Trump’s culpability and theirs. That includes this terrible collision over the Potomac, as the facts warrant.

Our opposition won’t stop all the damage, but it will make clear that there are still sentient Americans who grasp the difference between right and wrong, between competence and recklessness, between real leadership and hate-driven authoritarianism. This is our fight, no matter how treacherous it will be to return to sanity.

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