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Fox's Doocy makes solid points on the Potomac disaster by asking the questions Democrats should ask [1]
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Date: 2025-01-31
The facts on aviation safety in the US.
Under Biden, air travel was safer than under Trump 1.0. Here is a chart showing the trend in aviation accidents.
Why aren’t the Democrats hammering this home? Bearing that in mind let’s consider today’s White House press conference.
Peter Doocy
Fox News’ Peter Doocy was a gadfly during Biden's White House press conferences. He was so irritating that Joe once called him a “stupid son of a bitch.” Doocy is still Fox’s Senior White House correspondent. Based on the political bias of his employer, it would be reasonable to expect him to be gentler on a Trump WH press secretary. However, Doocy has shown independence. He is not offering the deference to the new administration so many right-wing journalists have.
Do not get me wrong. I am not nominating Doocy for a Walter Conkrite independent journalism award. He is still a Foxer, so his leash has a limit. But in three questions to Karoline Leavitt on Friday, he made Trump’s reaction to the Potomac air disaster look quantifiably stupid. I hope that Democratic leadership will take notice. So far their reaction to Trump has been to do nothing or claim that the orange malignancy is ‘arousing’ people .
Let’s look at the three questions.
Is Trump saying people should avoid flying?
Doocy makes the obvious point that if we take Trump’s rhetoric as gospel, commercial aviation in the US should be shut down.
PETER DOOCY: If President Trump is telling us that air traffic control towers are staffed with unqualified controllers, these DEI hires who never should have been brought on, it’s not safe to fly commercially, is it?
The Press Secretary cannot agree that people shouldn’t fly — that would be too nuts even for this unstable administration. Independent economists do not rate Trump's economics as a plus for the economy. Shutting down air travel would render a recession immediate. Ergo, Leavitt tries to have her cake (DEI has made flying dangerous) and eat it (DEI has not made flying dangerous).
KAROLINE LEAVITT: The president was asked to answer this yesterday and he believes that it is still indeed safe and Americans should feel safe traveling our skies. With that said, two things can be true at the same time. And we certainly have seen the deterioration of federal hiring standards at the Federal Aviation Administration. And the president wants to increase those standards. He wants pilots in this country who have the great responsibility of flying American citizens by the tens of millions every single day to be chosen for that position based on their merit and their skills. And so the administration will continue to prioritize this.
Two things can be true “at the same time” — unless they contradict each other. C’mon Dems, harp on this for chrissakes.
Forget generalities. Was the controller a DEI hire?
Blaming the FAA’s DEI hiring policies for the collision only works if the air traffic controller was a DEI hire. Doocy asks for clarification.
PETER DOOCY: Was the air traffic controller in the DCA tower on Wednesday night hired or not fired at some point because of his or her race?
Of course, Leavitt has no clue — any more than her boss does
KAROLINE LEAVITT: That investigation is ongoing. And so when we have updates on the exact individuals who were involved in the collision, including the air traffic controller, also the pilots of the helicopter and others, we will confirm those. I don’t want to confirm names from this podium today. We’re not in a position to do that. But I will say the president has still rightfully pointed out that there has been problems with the aviation industry over the past several years, and this started under Barack Obama in 2014.
Unfortunately, Doocy had his questions scripted so he didn’t follow up on Leavitt’s ‘Obama is the culprit’ charge. He could have asked, “What did Obama do?”. Or much better, “If Obama screwed up, why didn’t Trump fix it in his first term?”
If Trump knows what happened why doesn’t he tell us?
As the dead still lay entombed underwater in the shell of the downed aircraft, the world’s most strident know-nothing informed the world he knew everything. Doocy challenged Leavitt to clarify the details.
PETER DOOCY: And when the president says on Truth Social “The Black Hawk helicopter was flying too high by a lot, it was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it?” Is he suggesting a helicopter malfunction, or a crew error, or a crew doing this intentionally?
Leavitt, whose early form suggests she might be good as a Trump explainer, ignored reality. She discarded his dungheap of vitriolic hyperbole to leave a white bread summation of his excess.
KAROLINE LEAVITT: No. The president is simply stating what he said in that Truth Social post, which is that the helicopter was flying higher than it should have been, which is one of the reasons that led to this collision, and the other reasons for that are still being investigated. And I will let that investigation play out.
Leavitt will let the investigation play out, but her boss has already moved on. And the Democrats, who for some reason appear to be on vacation, failed to do what Doocy has done. Point out the dumbass inconsistencies in Trump’s position.
The MAGAs won’t care. But elections are won by the voters in the middle. Why aren’t the Democratic leaders talking to them?
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