As you can see, this turns out not to be that simple, with the dictionary  giving multiple definitions of  “bullet. To wit:
     1:  a round or elongated missile (as of lead) to be fired from a firearm
     2-a : something resembling a bullet (as in curved form);
     2: b : a large dot placed in printed matter to call attention to a particular passage
     Common sense (a virtue promoted by the Assistant to the President) argues that you consider using the first definition first, bcause it's first. So, in this case, we should go with the "elongated missile."
     But how to obtain five (5) elongated missiles in a hurry?  I’m pretty sure there aren’t any ammo shops in my neighborhood. And even if I’m able to obtain said elongated missiles, how to deliver them to my manager before midnight?
      Worse, what if the OPM email, defying common sense, intended that the respondent  use Merriam-Webster's definition 2-b, “a large dot,” and a total of five (5)  large dots?
      In which case, sending sending five (5) elongated missiles, instead of five (5) large dots, might reasonably cause the manager to conclude that the worker was making some sort of melodramatic warning, or worse, a terrorist threat, warranting immediate transport to Guantanamo.
      Arresting the worker would serve the Musk Administration's twin goals by a) reducing the workforce and b) supporting the renewed mission of the notorious Cuban prison, soon to be named Camp Musk, or Camp Trump, or Camp Musk-Trump or Camp Trump-Musk.

THEN THERE WAS A SECOND PITFALL, finding a “manager” to whom I would cc my five (5) arguments for continued employment.
     Being retired, I not only have no job, but I have no manager.
     With our "children" grown and moved out of the family homestead,  there’s just me and my wife. She is highly organized and mission-driven, but not inclined to manage her husband unless in emergencies, such as reminding him that this is the week to move the compost bin to the curbside for pickup, or that with February coming to an end, maybe it's time to consider taking down some of the Christmas decorations. And  I’m pretty sure that she would turn down the managerial job even on a one-time basis, because anything to do with the Musk Administration, in her judgment,  certainly would be loathsome, but hardly urgent.
      Which leaves Ben.    

 I’M NO EXPERT ON ESTIMATING CROWDS, but I’m guessing that between 50 to 75 people showed up for the school board meeting a few evenings later at an elementary school named for the late U.S Sen. Claiborne Pell, a much-cherished Newport resident.
     I can also tell  you, after a journalism career of covering too many city and town councils, boards and commissions, nothing focuses the attention of municipal leaders like an actual audience of disgruntled  “citizens.”
     Before too much time had passed, school committee members proposed changing the word “rescind” to “abeyance” – as in placing Policy 1050 in limbo pending its review.
     And then a final change in the resolution, to keep the policy in force while it was sent to a policy subcommittee for a legal review.
      Before the school board voted, 13 speakers variously questioned the use of the original word “rescind,” with some wondering how long any review would take, since time itself might bury the policy.
     When each of the speakers had their three-minutes of talking time, it was clear that the DEI defenders had won – and won big.
     Every speaker was cheered – and there were some eloquent statements about how important equity efforts are to a school system in which diversity itself is not in dispute: Whites make up 33 percent of the student body; Hispanics 39 percent; and Blacks 10 percent.
     One speaker identified as a transgender leader of a Girl Scout troop, said the scouts included gay, Latino and other Newport students, who came from a variety of economic backgrounds:
     When I see them after school, and they already have a smile on their faces, it  is because they spent the day in a classroom where they were welcomed and supported . . . This policy keeps a supportive and engaging learning environment possible, and it protects my kids' well-being.
     If  there were any DEI opponents in the crowd, they remained silent.
     The final vote, directing that a legal review be made of the policy, was 6 to 1, and the committee member who voted no did not explain his vote.

THIS IS A TIME when many people across the country are desperate to stop Trump’s demented and cruel campaign to wreck democracy and crush our souls.
     GOP acolytes hold both chambers of Congress, and the Supreme Court leans toward Trump, leaving few places where the Constitutional system seems to be working.
     Thus, there is a national chorus asking: “What can I do?" Calls overwhelm Congressional phone systems – at least for Democratic offices. Pundits  endlessly wonder where “The Resistance” has gone.
    But let’s state this as a fact, because the contrary is unacceptable: it is not too late to rescue democracy, which begins not in Washington, but always in the communities where we all actually live.
     The obvious venues are town halls and  school cafeterias, where simply showing  up can make a difference.
     And last night’s school committee meeting was an inspiring example that, at least in one seaside community, this kind of activism really worked.

 NOTES:

• Here's a link to What's Up Newp (WUN's) first story:  https://whatsupnewp.com/2025/02/newport-school-committee-to-vote-on-rescinding-equity-policy/)
  
• You can read WUN’s final school board story, and watch a video of the meeting at this link: https://whatsupnewp.com/2025/02/equity-policy-debate-draws-crowd-at-newport-school-committee-meeting/
• I used to write for WUN, but haven't recently.

IT’S A QUESTION HALF THE COUNTRY has been asking since Trump became president last month: How do you stop a bully?
     The answer is simple:
     When enough of us stand up to a bully, he or she stops.
     That’s goes for any bully, whether he's lurking in the school yard or the White House.
      But there’s a catch: the bully will hurt us.
     The school yard bully will break your nose, punch you in the gut, twist your arm, knock you down, get his pals to kick and taunt you, then send you away, bleeding, bruised and broken.
     The Oval Office mutation will do much worse.
     He will insult and libel you on social media; bring phony criminal and civil lawsuits against you, to exhaust your savings; get you fired or at demoted; tell armed militias where  you live and what your phone numbers are;  cancel your research grants; cripple your small business; run a primary campaign against you; track where you drive, what you read and whom you text; audit your taxes; bankrupt your daycare center; and ship you to Guantanamo (and you thought that was just for immigrant detainees).
     This explains, in part, why there’s been little effective push-back to Trump: It’s scary and difficult to go after a bully.
     It’s comfortable to belittle the people – particularly Republicans -  who worshipfully cheer him on; or who hint at opposing him, then back down; or those office holders, the worst villains of all, because they say and do nothing.
     The press has been particularly complicit, largely ignoring this army of Republican snivelers that's empowered Trump to become the world’s master bully, as if the subject is old news and unworthy of repeating.
     Meanwhile, there’s entire wing of the media devoted to mocking Democrats for failing to counter Trump as too divided, too old, too progressive, too tongue-tied, too boring, too slow and too alienated from the Working Class.
     I swear that the New York Times has created a special  Demoralize the Democrats Desk by churning out headlines like:

• Are the Democrats in Even More Trouble Than They Think? (Jan. 20)
• ‘We Have No Coherent Message’: Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump (Feb. 2)
• Many Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities  (Feb. 2)
• Where Are the Democrats?  (Feb 6)
• As Ground Shifts, ‘Flailing’ Democrats Struggle to Find Footing in Diversity Fight (Feb. 8)

 
A NATION OF COWARDS?
      What's remarkable is how an entire nation, from coast to coast, border to  border, seems cowed by the bully-in-chief .
      Among most despicable quislings are individuals and institutions that  have the most power and financial wherewithal to stand up to Trump and therefore to encourage the rest of us to push back.
     Where to start? Jeff Bezos, the billionaire genius behind of Amazon, whose embrace of Trump is astonishing,  donating to Trump, winning a choice seat at the inauguration. Doesn’t the man read his own newspaper, the Washington Post, to understand the damage Trump is causing?
     Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, with years left in his term, could have shown a touch of stewardship by forcing Trump to fire him, rather than slinking away the minute Trump took office.
     It’s perhaps too easy to point  at  Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican, who, if she had done the “right” thing, might have encouraged fellow GOPers to question one of Trump’s most clownish, but dangerous cabinet nominee.
     Ernst had doubts about Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense. A combat veteran, who had been sexually assaulted in college, Ernst had credible cause to question Hegseth's fitness, given his opposition to women in combat, while facing accusations of sexual misbehavior.
      But Ernst, receiving threats of a primary challenge,  eventually supported Hegseth, who got the job when Vice President JD Vance broke a Senate tie after  three other Republicans joined Democrats in voting no.
     The Dishonor Roll is vast and growing.
     The Boston Globe last week reported that top medical organizations chickened out of criticizing Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, even though individual doctors have condemned his skepticism of vaccines.
     Paul Offit, a pediatrician and expert on vaccines at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as calling the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association,  “cowardly” for their silence.
      “I think it’s shameful that the AAP or AMA or the other major groups don’t step forward clearly and definitively with statements about how dangerous this man could be,” Offit said.

IN DESCRIBING THIS NATION OF COWARDS, I don’t want to suggest that I’m any kind of role model for leading the resistance, the rebellion or whatever you call it.
     I’m a fearful, timid man, a lifelong milquetoast, who still cringes at the memory of the scary parts of the “Wizard of Oz,” identifying only with the appearances of the Cowardly Lion.
     When I was a reporter, I was a member of the labor union at my newspaper.
     Absurdly, I was chair of the grievance committee, charged with defending workers who had been disciplined or fired by management:  (“The Cowardly Lion has your back”).
     The union won most of its cases. But workers who ran afoul of management suffered immensely. They lived under the shadow of being labeled “bad employees,” with some  demoted or suspended during the months, even years it took their cases to go through arbitrations and regulatory and court hearings.
      After individuals “won,” clearing their records and sometimes being compensated financially, most chose to leave the company. And in the rare cases where someone was returned to his or her job, the personal and professional scars were permanent.
    The lesson:  Yes, you can fight City Hall; and, yes, you can win. But there's always a price.

TAKING ON TRUMP,  therefore, means both being willing to act, while acknowledging the personal danger.
     From the outset, any of us who challenge Trump should  recognize the consequences, which will be far worse than those suffered by the people I’ve described, who were involved in old-fashioned, vanilla labor disputes.
      Each one of us has to decide not only what we can do, but if we are able.
     Just as important is to recognize that if we remain a fearful, cowardly nation, our lives and our country will be ruined.
     Donald Trump is ripping our country apart, aided by Elon Musk and his team of techno-two-year-olds, who are out to destroy entire federal departments and agency, invade citizens’ personal information, fire professionals and halt medical care and research.
      Trump-Musk are moving to re-segregate America, accelerate climate destruction, degrade the economy, grab land from other countries and lie about their reasons and motives for doing all of that.
     It’s also clear that we are not helpless.
     I believe that success is not only possible, but certain - certain if millions of us do something. Our own roles will vary as to who we are, what we can do and when we can act.
        I wish I could say I will be brave enough – knowing I’ve always have been a person of uncertain courage, and, that over a long life, I have witnessed the real the cost of protest.
     So, I can’t promise you that I’ll be up to the challenge.
     Only that I want to be.

DONALD TRUMP CANNOT BE  TRUSTED  WITH THE TRUTH.
     What? This is something new?
     If anything is certain about Donald Trump, it’s that he’s a man who mostly doesn’t tell the truth – ever. Almost everything he says is a distortion, an exaggeration, a misstatement, a falsehood, a fib or a lie.
     This was the key lesson Trump’s first term, and now of the president’s second, as demonstrated by his disgraceful “briefing” to reporters Jan. 30, hours after a jetliner-helicopter collision killed 67 people in Washington, DC.
     It can be argued that of the many sins that Trump committed in his talk about the crash, his contempt for the truth is the least shocking. Other elements seemed worse:

• Using a tragedy to make political points, namely tying the crash to his crusade to undermine diversity initiatives, with the implication that race lowers quality work.
• Casting blame on people who were key players – pilots, air traffic controllers – before the causes of crash were known.
• Injecting mean, ugly and hateful emotions into a moment that demanded empathy, sorrow and caring.

     But I think Trump’s overall narrative is important, because it’s an example of what is going to happen over and over and over again as his presidency unfolds.
     When crises happen, Trump, at the presidential podium, and supposedly armed with the facts no one else has, will be among the first to provide the “news.”
     If China attacks Taiwan, Russia explodes a nuclear device, a new pandemic emerges; if there’s another mass shooting; if the economy tanks and if an asteroid heads for earth, Trump will be guiding our brains, and, in the process, messing with them.
     Which is why I wanted to look closely at how his briefing that distorted the events surrounding the crash, using it as a guide to what to expect in the future.
     If  you’re interested, I’ve included the link to the White House YouTube video of Trump’s news conference , so you can watch and listen yourself.
      Press conference:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShRYdYTtIx8
    And I’ve appended a partial, homemade transcript of what Trump said, along with his exchanges with reporters, at the end of this post.

HOW TRUMP OPERATES
     Some guidelines for listening to Trump:

• There’s often a crumb of truth buried in whatever gruel Trump is dishing out – not much mind you, but a morsel or two to put you on your guard.
• He introduces topics that have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
• He speaks in a kind of mobster’s code, rarely saying outright what he means. His past as a shifty businessman may have trained him to speak as if somebody is listening in, hoping to find “smoking gun” words.
• The result is that it takes a lot of re-listening and re-reading sessions to figure it out exactly what Trump has said.

     In the end, you realize that it’s largely been a waste of time, since he has contempt for words, for language, for meaning and for you.

A FEW FACTS
     Of the 4,000 or so words in the transcript, about 400, or 0.1 percent are a factual summary of the disaster. The passenger jet and Army helicopter collided on Jan 29 and sank into the Potomac River. The water was cold. There were no survivors. It happened at night. There was a large-scale recovery effort. The cause or causes were under investigation. Nothing that the public already hadn’t heard .

A DOLLOP OF SYMPATHY
     As a layman, I’ve long felt that Trump is a psychopath and doesn’t care about other people. But he can read, and here’s some of what he read aloud in “sympathy” about the crash:

     On behalf of the First Lady, myself, and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours, and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come. We'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.
     We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love,  and our support is great. In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations. We are one family and today we are all heartbroken.

     It's a lie, this business about being “one family.” He sure didn’t mean the people involved in the tragedy, or the nation as being part of “one family,” unless he’s referring to families whose members are at each others' throats.
     As he got rolling, he blamed lots of the family’s members and activities: programs to bring diversity into the workplace;  former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for supposedly allowing lax air travel safety standards; and air traffic controllers and now-dead helicopter pilots as possibly being  culpable for the crash.

WHAT HE SAID.
WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY.
MAYBE WHAT HE SORT OF SAID
     The shocking element of Trump’s discussion of the crash was that he inserted one of his favorite bugaboos - DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs – as possible factors contributing to he disaster.
     He read from news stories about DEI programs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He said that those programs lowered safety standards; that they were the fault of Obama and Biden; and that DEI promoted incompetent personnel. He ranted incessantly about how he acted in his first term, and now again in his second, to correct this betrayal of competence.
     But he never said  outright that DEI was to blame for the crash. Over and over, Trump insisted that the causes were not yet known:

      We’re all searching for answers.
* * *
     The FAA, and the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) and the US Military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive investigation.
* * *
     It’s all under investigation.

     Then he said this:

     We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we’ll probably state those opinions now.
    
     You got it. The leader of the country, the guy with all the information that the rest of us don't have, the commander-and-chief, has some opinions and ideas.   As if he were just another guy at the bar, spouting off  about why his sports team just lost.    He said:

     Over the years, I’ve watched as things like this happen and they say, ‘Well, we’re always investigating.’ And the investigation, three years later, they announced it.

     So, why wait? Instead, a president, like anyone, can speculate.
     Think about the cruelty of presidential musings. We can presume the air traffic controllers on duty that night were already overcome with grief and guilt; and the families of the helicopter crew, not only were mourning the losses of their loved ones, now listened to their commander-in-chief suggest the whole thing might have been the crew’s fault.
     As to the air traffic controllers: were they placed Reagan National Airport towers because of lax standards? Were they the kind of people DEI allows to do critical jobs, so that the FAA staffs control towers with people who have issues with “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism?”

      We’ll see. We don’t know that necessarily it’s even the controllers’ fault."
    
     Okay, how about the folks in the helicopter?     Trump said:
    
     You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter. I mean, because it was visual, it was a very clear night. It was cold, but clear and clear as you could be. The American Airlines plane had lights blazing; they had all their landing lights on.
    
     Trump went on to say the helicopter may have been told to change course.

     And the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously, and it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told. We don’t know that that would have been the difference, because the timing was so tight.
    
     So, maybe it wasn’t the fault of the helicopter crew, after all.
     Then why speculate?  The answer, Trump said, in an exchange with a reporter, is because this president has special powers:

     REPORTER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity elements, but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake. Then said perhaps the helicopter pilots that were the ones who made the mistake.
     TRUMP: It’s all under investigation.  
     REPORTER: I understand that. That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.
     TRUMP: Because I have common sense, okay? And unfortunately a lot of people don't.”

NEVER ENOUGH FEAR AND HATE
     Trump seems  always to add an extra element of misery and hurt to whatever he’s talking about.
     Some people think he does this to confuse an issue, or deflect attention away from one in which he has a role. But I think he does it just to be mean.
     In this case, Trump introduced the aforementioned DEI subject, so that he could insult former presidents, push blame onto the people directly involved the crash and add hatred to the discussion.
     He claimed that DEI programs – which are meant to expand the pool of employees to folks whom may have been excluded in the past by prejudice and bigotry –  have lowered safety standards, allowing  second-rate people to be hired and promoted.
     Trump claimed that had he raised personnel standards in his first term, and did so again immediately after taking office.

     We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that. Only the highest aptitude, have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers.
     That was not so prior to getting there, when I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was a job that and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence, and we didn't really have that. And we had it. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.
     I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. Because this was the lowest level, their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.

     Trump also insulted Pete Buttigieg, the former director of the Department of Transportation, which includes the FAA, as a “disaster” – “He’s just got a good line of bullshit.”
         I’m sure the families of the crash victims were comforted by the president’s barnyard language and attack on previous office holders. On the other hand, maybe they believed Trump was on to something – he’s the president after all, and the one with common sense. Maybe, in their grief, families could hate the controllers, the pilots, Obama, Biden and Buttigieg.
      And certainly people with disabilities, or who are in groups subjected to historical prejudice, once again felt abused, misrepresented and slandered.

CLEANING UP THE MESS
    With Trump, the clean-up always takes more effort and time than it took Trump to deliver his fibs, insinuations, lies and maybe's.
     For days afterwards, news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times explored in detail the issues Trump had raised. Here’s some of what they found:

THE DEI BACKGROUND. For all of Trump’s bombast about reforming DEI, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote that Trump did not change the DEI program in place at the FAA during his first term.

      Trump claimed that he had changed Obama’s criteria for hiring air traffic controllers with greater diversity — when in fact he left it unchanged. Moreover, he decried the fact that FAA hired controllers with a range of disabilities that he listed at the news conference. But that program was launched during his first term.

THE FOLKS IN THE TOWER
     As to whether dwarfs, quadriplegics, the blind and other potentially impaired people were running the control tower, that’s not likely, since background articles said applicants for controller jobs undergo rigorous procedures and most  never make the cut.
     But both the Times and the Post found that the control tower was understaffed: normally, one controller would be assigned to regular aircraft, another to helicopters; but at the time of the crash, one controller was doing both jobs.
     And if you wanted to throw some blame around, members of Congress should be included,.
     Congress, ignoring critics’ warnings about safety at the crowded airfield, expanded the number of flights there, because some like to use that airfield, which is so close to the capitol, while commuting to and from their districts.

THE FOLKS IN THE COCKPIT
     Trump made a big deal about there being a clear visual field last Wednesday night, so pilots might have seen an oncoming aircraft and possibly taken evasive action.
     But among experts reporters sought out later was the iconic pilot, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger,  famous for safely landing an airliner in New York City’s Hudson River in 2009.
     Sullenberger said night flying, over water, makes visual judgements difficult.

     Nighttime always makes things different about seeing other aircraft — basically all you can do is see the lights on them, You have to try to figure out: Are they above you or below you? Or how far away? Or which direction are they headed?

TODAY’S LESSON: A REVIEW

     If you have made it this far, you realize that you have wasted your time in giving Trump a close look.
     Just as I’ve wasted my time listening to the video. Making a transcript. Checking it. Studying it. Reading news reports. And then writing a long winded, but hardly complete review.
     In any event, with the crash coverage fading, which happens to every Big Story, it’s time to move onto the next one.
      Today, tariffs seem to be taking the center ring.
      Trump will have lots to say.

     * * *
     Below are links to some of the news stories I’ve looked at in writing this post:

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/30/dc-plane-crash-helicopter-recovery-no-survivors-potomac-river/
• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/us/plane-crash-potomac-lessons-sully.html

     * * *
TRANSCRIPT
This is a partial transcript of President Trump’s press briefing Jan. 30 about the Reagan National Airport crash the previous evening.

TRUMP: I speak to you this morning in an hour of anguish for pit nation Just before 9:00 PM last night, an American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three military service members over the Potomac River in Washington, DC while on final approach to Reagan National Airport. Both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac.

A real tragedy. The massive search and rescue mission was underway throughout the night, leveraging every asset at our disposal, and I have to say the local, state, federal military. Including the United States Coast Guard in particular. They've done a phenomenal job. So quick, so fast. It was mobilized immediately. The work has now shifted to a recovery mission.

Sadly, there are no survivors. This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation's capital and in our nation's history, and a tragedy of terrible proportions. As one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly, and we are a country of, really, we are in mourning. This is really shaking a lot of people, including people very sadly from other nations who were on the flight,  for the family members back in Wichita, Kansas, here in Washington, D.C. and throughout the United States and in Russia.

We have a Russian contingent. Very talented people, unfortunately, were on that plane. Very, very, very sorry about that. Whose loved ones were aboard the passenger jet. We can only begin to imagine the agony that you're all feeling. Nothing worse.

On behalf of the First Lady, myself, and 340 million Americans, our hearts are shattered alongside yours and our prayers are with you now and in the days to come. We'll be working very, very diligently in the days to come.

We're here for you to wipe away the tears and to offer you our devotion, our love, and our support is great. In moments like this, the differences between Americans fade to nothing compared to the bonds of affection and loyalty that unite us all, both as Americans and even as nations. We are one family and today we are all heartbroken.

We're all searching for answers. That icy, icy Potomac. It was  a cold, cold night, cold water. We're all overcome with the grief for many who have so tragically perished will no longer be with us.

Together, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey ended not in the cold waters of the Potomac, but in the warm. embrace of a loving God.

We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now because over the years I've watched as things like this happen and they say, well, we're always investigating. And then the investigation, three years later, they announced it.

I think we have some pretty good ideas, but we'll find out how this disaster occurred and we'll ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. The FAA and the NTSB and the US military will be carrying out a systematic and comprehensive investigation. Our new secretary of transportation. Sean Duffy, is (in) his second day on the job. When that happens, it's it's a rough one.

We'll be working tirelessly. He's a great gentleman. Whole group is. These are great people, and they are working tirelessly to figure out exactly what happened. We, we will state, certain opinions, however,

I'm also immediately appointing an acting commissioner to the FAA, Christopher Rocheleau, a 22 year veteran of the agency, highly respected. Christopher, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. You remember that. Only the highest aptitude; have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not so prior to getting there, when I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on because I always felt this was a job that, and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence, and we didn't really have that. And we had it. And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.

I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. Because this was the lowest level; their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.

So as you know, last week, long before the crash, I signed an executive order restoring our higher standards for air traffic controllers and other important jobs throughout the country. So it was very interesting. About a week ago, almost upon entering office, I signed something last week that was an executive order, very powerful and restoring the highest standards of air traffic controllers and others, by the way,

Then, my administration will set the highest possible bar for aviation safety; we have to have our smartest people. It doesn't matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are. It matters, intellect, talent, the word talent. They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses. You can't have regular people doing that job. They won't be able to do it, but we'll restore faith in American air travel. I'll have more to say about that.

I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one “The FAA's Diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities.” That is amazing ,and then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are the most underrepresented segment of the workforce. Said they want them in and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.

This was on January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office, they put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.

And then another article, the Federal Aviation Administration. This was before I got to office recently, second term. The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website. Can you imagine?

These are people that are, I mean actually, their lives are shortened because of the stress that they have. Brilliant people have to be in those positions and their lives are actually shortened very substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into one target and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it.

Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that The federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis and recruitment and hiring, the FAA's website states. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism. All qualify for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country, pouring into a little spot, a little dot on the map, a little runway. The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion hiring plan. Think of that. The initiative is part of the FAA's Diversity and Inclusion hiring plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's just the opposite.

The FAA website shows that the agencies guidance and diversity hiring were last updated on March 23rd of ‘22. They wanted to make it even more so. And then I came in and I assume maybe this is the reason -  the FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg. A real winner, that's the guy, a real winner. Do you know how badly everything's run, since he's run the Department of Transportation, he's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster now. He's just got a good line of bullshit. The Department of Transportation is a government agency charged with regulating civil aviation. While he runs it, 45,000 people, and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity. So I had to say that it's terrible.

Then it's a group within the FAA, another story. Determined that the workforce was too white that they had concerted efforts to. get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there. And we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, we took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's one of the reasons I won,

But they actually, came out with a directive, too  white, and we want the people that are competent

But now we mourn and we pray, and we would like to ask all Americans to join me in a moment of silence as we ask God to watch over those who have lost their lives and bring comfort to the loved ones and. I just want to say ‘God bless everyone in this room.’ This has been a terrible, a very short period of time.

We'll get to the bottom of it. So we all saw the same thing. We've seen it many times. I've had the honor of hearing tapes. Tapes are scary, very scary types. You had a  airliner coming in, American Airlines, He was doing everything right. He was on track. He was (on) the same track as everybody else that came in, and it's probably the same track as they've had for 25 years or more.

He's coming in to the path. And for some reason, (you) had a helicopter that was at the same height. Obviously when they hit, but pretty much the same height. And going at an angle that was unbelievably bad.

When the air traffic controller said 'Do you see?’ you know, he's talking about do you see him? But there was very little time left when that was stated.

And then also he said ‘Follow him in,’ and then almost immediately after that, you know, seconds after that, that was the crash that took place. Well, follow him in and that means like everything's fine. Follow him in.

You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter, I mean, because it was visual, it was very clear night, it was cold, but clear and clear as you could be. The American Airlines plane had lights blazing. They had all their landing lights on.

I could see it from the Kennedy Center tape. We had a tape up on the Kennedy Center. That seems to be the primary. That's why I'm sure we'll see other tapes because it's such an area where there are a lot of cameras, a lot of cameras looking up in into. the air into space, so we'll probably see many other shots of it before too much time goes by.

But we had a situation where you had a helicopter that had the ability to stop. I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly. It had the ability to go up or down. It had the ability to turn. And the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously, and it did somewhat the opposite of what it was told.

We don't know that that would have been the difference. because the timing was so tight. It was so it was so little, it was so little time to think.

But what you did have is you had vision. The helicopter had vision of the plane because you had vision of it all the way, perfect vision of it all the way from at Kennedy Center where the tape was taken and for some reason there weren't adjustments made.

Again, you could have slowed down the helicopter substantially. You could have stopped the helicopter. You could have gone up. You could have gone down. You could have gone straight up, straight down, you could have turned, you could have done a million different maneuvers.

For some reason, it just kept going. And then made a slight turn, at the very end, and it was by that time, it was too late. They shouldn't have been at the same height,  because if it wasn't the same height, you could have gone under it or over it and. Nobody realized or they didn't say that it's at the same height.

At the same height would, it would still wouldn't have been great, but you would have missed it by quite a bit; could have been 1,000 feet higher; it could have been 200 feet lower, but it was exactly at the same height, and somebody should have been able to point that out.

So all of this is going to be studied, but it just seems to me from a couple of words that I like to use the words ‘common sense.’

Some really bad things happened and some things happened that shouldn't have happened. So you had a helicopter going and in an identical direction you had a helicopter that was at the exact same height as somebody going, and essentially the opposite direction; you had a plane that was following a track, which is a track that every other plane followed.

And I, I don't imagine, I know I've heard today that they might have been following the preceding plane, which was pretty close, but not that close (to) the preceding plane. But you wouldn't have even been able to see that because of the direction that the helicopter was coming in at.

So you had a confluence of, of bad decisions that were made. And you have people that lost their lives, violently lost their lives.

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REPORTER: On DEI and the claims  you’ve made, are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?

TRUMP: It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else and there are things where you have to go by. Brain power, you have to go by psychological quality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden, and Biden went by his standard that’s the exact opposite.

So we don't know, but we do know that you had two planes, at the same level, you had an air helicopter and a plane, it shouldn't have happened. And we'll see. We're going to look into that. We're going to see. But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have here.

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REPORTER: Do you yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed, and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the US military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter.  Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?

TRUMP: I don't think so at all. I don't think where the names of the people - yYou mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that's going to make a difference there ….

REPORTER: Does it comfort their families for you to be blaming DEI…

TRUMP: They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American Airlines. We're in coordination very strongly, obviously with the military. But I, I don’t think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised, coming from you.
* * *

REPORTER: Thank you. Thank you, President Trump, for being here. Based on your analysis so far, do you have a sense of who was at fault, if it was the plane, the helicopter, air traffic control, and can you assure people that it is safe to fly in and out of DC?

TRUMP: Well, I've given you the analysis and the analysis was, it was based on vision. You had a lot of people that saw what was happening. You had some people that knew what was happening. There was some warnings, but the warnings were given very, very late. You know, those warnings were given very late. It was almost as they were given. A few seconds later there was the crash. It should have been brought up earlier.

But the people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going. I can't imagine people with 20/20 Vision not seeing, you know what's happening up there. Again, they shouldn't have been at the same height you're going with in reverse directions or sideway directions. Obviously you want to be a different heights. I see it all the time when I'm flying. If you have planes going in the opposite, they're always lower, we're higher or they're so if somehow, there's a screw up, there's not going to be a tragedy. It'll be close, but you know, there's never going to be a tragedy if you're in a different elevation. For whatever reason, they were at the same elevation. And also from the American Airlines (word unclear), he's along the track that every plane is along. See what was helicopter doing in that track? It's very sad. But visually somebody should have been able to see and taken that helicopter out of play. and they should have been at a different height.
* * *

REPORTER: You’ve already issued an executive order. You say, well, you start aviation safety, right? This crash happened after that. Was the executive order successful? And what more needs to change?

TRUMP: People say, well, you know, we issued it three days ago and we were in the process of making those changes. This is this is something that should have been done a long time ago.

Actually my original order should have never been changed and I think maybe you wouldn't have had this problem. Maybe. Yeah, please, yes, thank you.
* * *

REPORTER: You see like everyday life that's very often those  diversity hires those sometimes issues as you just mentioned. So what,  when do you have, are we going to see some firings? Are you going to fire some of those diversity hires in the federal government wants? What's the plan do you have?

TRUMP:  I would say the answer is yes, if we find that people aren't mentally competent, you, you see the language, the language is put out by them. And if you see that, I'm not going to bore you by reading it again. But these are not people that should be doing this particular job. They'd be very good for certain jobs, but not people that should be doing this particular job.
* * *

REPORTER: Mr. President, you have today blamed the diversity elements, but then told us that you weren't sure that the controllers made any mistake. Then said perhaps the helicopter pilots that were the ones who made the mistake.

TRUMP:  It’s all under investigation.  

REPORTER: I understand that. That's why I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash,

TRUMP: Because I have common sense, OK? And unfortunately a lot of people don't.

We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level When you have. 60 planes coming in during a short period of time, and they’re all coming in at different directions and you're dealing with very high level computer, computer work and very complex computers.

And one of the other things I will tell you is that the systems that were built, I was going to rebuild the entire system and then we had an election, that didn't turn out the way it should have, but they didn't build the systems properly. They spent a lot of money renovating a system, spending much more money than they would have spent if they bought a new system for air traffic controllers….