NAACP President Snaps Back at Trump’s DEI Talk By Blaming His ‘Sinister Strategy’ of ‘Cutting Corners’ for DC Crash
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson suggested President Donald Trump’s “sinister strategy” of “cutting corners” is to blame for the recent Washington, D.C. plane crash that led to dozens of deaths.
Trump has earned pushback for pointing to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies as potentially to blame for the crash where a military helicopter and civilian plane collided near Ronald Reagan National Airport. All of those onboard both aircrafts died in the crash.
Trump signed an anti-DEI memo this week at the White House, though he admitted when challenged that he doesn’t know whether “race or gender” played a role as he had suggested.
Johnson joined MSNBC’s José Díaz-Balart on Friday and blasted Trump over his anti-DEI policies and pointed to Trump’s own administration’s actions as to blame for the crash, including gutting the Aviation Security Advisory Committee shortly before the crash. Johnson also cited a vacancy at the head of the FAA during the crash (Trump appointed Christopher Rocheleau as acting director the day after) and other unfilled positions as part of Trump’s “sinister strategy” of “cutting corners” in government to maximize his own private “profits.”
Check out the exchange below:
DERRICK JOHNSON: You use something that’s extreme to distract the focus on what should be the priority or what’s important, so that you can have the nation looking over there while at the same time in the opposite direction you’re doing things such as reducing the function of federal government, outsourcing those functions, and privatizing those functions so you can maximize profit. You’re doing things such as cutting corners, causing accidents in the sky, and not ensuring that our food is safe.
And so, as, as a community, African-American community, as an American community, we must not be distracted, and stay focused on what’s really taking place here.
The accident yesterday was preventable. What do you think about the last two weeks? The head of FAA, the head of the Coast Guard, and a key committee were all disbanded by this administration, not because of race or gender, but because of a sinister strategy to privatize government and distract the American people. And we should not fall prey to that.
JOSE DIAZ-BALART: It’s interesting because I think it’s important that — I want you to kind of explain that, because there are those who were saying that this accident could have been preventable for other reasons and consequences, and you’re saying that it could have been prevented why?
JOHNSON: It’s not what I’m saying. It’s what experts have said, that if you don’t have anyone in at the helm to ensure we have individuals who are in charge, who understand the technical functions of ensuring that passengers are safe, our military is safe, and all those people who support these activities are in place, then you have these type of disasters. So it’s not what I’m saying, that if you remove the head of FAA, you don’t replace him, if you disband a select committee and you don’t replace him, if you remove the head of the Coast Guard and you seek to not fund certain functions in a time where we have already have a critical shortage of air traffic controllers, you’re not solving anything. You’re causing more problems.
Watch above via MSNBC.
