While delivering a statement following Wednesday's mid-air collision between a regional jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, President Donald Trump suggested that the Department of Transportation's hiring practices played a role in the crash.
He claimed that the Biden and Obama administrations lowered the standard to become an air traffic controller with the Federal Aviation Administration.
"They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA program," he said.
Authorities said that it was likely no one on board the helicopter and the airplane survived the crash. At least 30 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River, officials said.
Officials are at the beginning stages of their investigation, and a cause of the crash has not officially been determined. The National Transportation Safety Board is launching an investigation, but as President Trump noted, its investigations can take months or even years to complete.
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It is unknown who was the air traffic controller or whether human error was a factor.
In his address, President Trump blasted the Biden and Obama administrations' policies that promoted the hiring of people with disabilities for government jobs. He claimed that the approach was in place as part of a broader diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring policy within the federal government that he has sought to end.
On July 26, 2010, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13548, which stated that the federal government should be a model for hiring people with disabilities.
On Thursday, President Trump echoed a statement he released last week blasting the Federal Aviation Administration for hiring people who have "severe intellectual disabilities."
"Brilliant people have to be in those positions," President Trump said.
Watch the President's full remarks below
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According to the FAA, a person with severe intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities is eligible for non-competitive appointments to FAA positions if they can provide documentation that they are "physically qualified to do the work without hazard to self or to others."
Also during Trump's first term, the FAA announced a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.
"The candidates in this program will receive the same rigorous consideration in terms of aptitude, medical, and security qualifications as those individuals considered for a standard public opening for air traffic controller jobs. Participants in the program will receive up to one year of experience in an Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) with the potential to be appointed to a temporary ATCS position at the FAA Academy," the FAA said in 2019.
