Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov on Thursday called out Donald Trump for blaming Democrats, his predecessors, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives for the fatal airplane and helicopter collision in Washington, D.C., Wednesday night.
On The Five, Tarlov said Trump’s prepared remarks struck the correct note—but when he went off-script soon after, he was “unpresidential.”
As for DEI, “there is a moment to be talking about those things, and there is a moment to just be a consoler-in-chief,” Tarlov said, approvingly citing CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean’s reaction to Trump.
“What he said was not only unprofessional, unpresidential, inconsiderate of the status of the investigation, but it’s frankly unhinged,” Tarlov quoted Muntean as saying.
Tarlov elaborated that Trump’s remarks in the teleprompter, whether from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or whoever, “sounded like somebody who was actually thinking of the families of the people who had just passed away.”
That didn’t last, though.
“Then he had a campaign rally in the middle of what should have been a somber occasion,” Tarlov said.
“And these DEI policies were put in place in 2013,” she went on. “He had every opportunity through his first administration to revoke them if he thought they were terrible, but he didn’t.”
In addition, as The Washington Post notes, Trump in 2019 started a diversity program for air traffic controllers—the same thing he complained about on Thursday.
Tarlov then pointed out that the lack of a Senate-confirmed Federal Aviation Administration leader was also a “problem.”
“There is no head of the FAA because Michael Whitaker resigned,“ she said, noting that Trump pal Elon Musk had been hounding him to quit for months and threatened a lawsuit after Whitaker proposing fining SpaceX for allegedly failing to comply with with safety requirements.
Tarlov also noted that there is currently no confirmed Coast Guard commandant because Trump fired Admiral Linda Fagan for what the Homeland Security Department said was an “excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Tarlov concluded that, despite what the Trump administration has been saying, “DEI is not a scapegoat for everything.”
