Vance and Duffy Écho Trump by blaming Dei for the accident near Washington

Transport secretary, Sean Duffy, and vice-president JD Vance joined President Trump on Sunday to blame diversity hiring practices at the Federal Aviation Administration for the outdoor collision of a commercial jet and a military helicopter Near Washington last week.

“The person with controls did not have enough staff around him because we were diverting people for reasons of Dei,” said Vance on Fox News, using abbreviation for diversity, equity and inclusion. “Dei’s policies have led our air traffic controllers to be in the short term – it’s a scandal.”

Trump, without proof, linked his longtime complaints regarding the hiring diversity in the accident near the National Airport to Ronald Reagan on Thursday. The president quoted on the FAA website, which he said said that the agency was trying to hire people with disabilities.

No evidence suggests that the diversity job programs contributed to the accident on Wednesday evening. These programs – some of which began or pursued under the first term of Mr. Trump – followed the same standards of aptitude, medical and security used for the hiring of candidates without disabilities.

In 2019, for example, a pilot program that the FAA began to hire 20 people with disabilities stressed that these candidates “would receive the same rigorous consideration” as those considered to be “a standard public opening for the jobs of the air traffic controller”.

But Sunday, Mr. Duffy suggested without proposing that efforts to diversify hiring had affected the quality of the workforce in the air traffic control towers.