Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Donald Trump’s remarks about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the Washington D.C. plane crash showed “poor leadership.”
Host Kristen Welker said, “I do have to start again on this tragic news about this plane crash here in the nation’s capital. You, of course, have flown combat missions as a Navy pilot. You just heard my conversation with Senator Schmitt responding to what we heard from President Trump this week, that diversity programs, according to the president, may have played a role. The president acknowledging he does not have proof of that. What is your take on what we know and what you’ve heard?”
Kelly said, “Well, Kristen, first, it’s a tragic and sad accident. I really feel for the families on the plane, on the helicopter. It’s – you know, you know, these accidents are all often a very complicated set of things that happen sequentially. It’s often not one thing that causes a major aviation accident like this. I’ve been involved in accident investigations, particularly, like with the – with Space Shuttle Columbia, you know, as an example, that we lost in 2003. And to say that it has to do with the person’s color of their skin or their gender, I think that’s just poor leadership. And especially at a time where any president is supposed to be the consoler-in-chief, and not the person that’s going to try to divide us as a country, especially when you don’t have the appropriate information. And he clearly does not have the information in this case. This is too early in the investigation. The NTSB is really good at this. They’ll do a thorough investigation, and we’ll eventually see what the cause of this accident was.”
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