Jonathan Lemire Accuses Trump Of Using ‘National Tragedy’ To ‘Score Political Points’: ‘We’ve Seen It A Few Times’
Morning Joe host Jonathan Lemire accused President Donald Trump of using the “national tragedy” that was the Washington DC aircraft crash to “score political points and attack his foes” in what was appearing to be a pattern.
In a briefing on Thursday, Trump baselessly claimed declining air traffic control standards and DEI policies at the FAA “could have been” responsible for the collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military helicopter on Wednesday.
Trump falsely claimed former President Joe Biden had ended “very powerful tests” for air traffic controllers and that standards were higher under his presidency. When pressed on linking DEI to the crash, he simply said, “It just could have been.”
Commenting on the claims on Friday’s Morning Joe, Lemire pointed out that the first Trump administration kept diversity initiatives in place that were implemented by former President Barack Obama. The host went on to accuse Trump of driving a “wedge issue” and listed multiple examples of national crises in the past month in which the president, he argued, had adopted the same strategy.
It is worth reiterating this is again a first policies, the diversity initiatives, were put in place by President Obama. Trump, while he was president, left them there and then it was his. Then it was his own FAA, when he was in charge, that promoted programs about hiring those with disabilities to join that agency.
And that yesterday he, of course, tried to blame them in a wedge issue, speaking, you know, in moments after a crisis, our nation reeling from it, choosing once again division. Also lying about his record, very reminiscent, I would say, from [the campaign trail claims about] Vice President [Kamala] Harris and the idea of transgender surgery provided for inmates in prisons. Well, we fact checked it at the time and found that that program also existed under the Trump administration. He, of course, in his bureau of prisons promoted it. He, of course, did not change it while he was in office.
But bigger picture, it’s another occasion where this president took a time of national tragedy and tried to use it to score political points and attack his foes. We’ve seen it a few times this month, the wildfires in southern California – he blamed that on Democratic politicians before he was sworn in. The terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day – he blamed that on the border when it turned out, of course, that it was a US citizen from Texas who carried out the attacks.
His instinct is never to bring people together. But even in some stunning fashion, try to blame others and point fingers when, of course, as president, the responsibility should be lying with him.
Watch above via MSNBC.
