Letters from an American - January 30, 2025

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

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January 30th, 2025. Last night, just before 9 o'clock Eastern time, an American Airlines jet originating in Wichita, Kansas, carrying 64 people and a US Army helicopter carrying three military personnel collided in the airspace over Washington, D.C. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. Authorities say there were no survivors. I'm going to leave that right there with my best wishes for the victims and their friends and family and hope that we can give them some breathing room.

It is perfectly legitimate to stop listening right here and pick the world up again tomorrow. But for people who want to hear more about the larger picture of today's United States, I'll turn to what the administration's reaction to this tragedy says about the ideology of the new Trump administration. As Claire Moses of the New York Times noted, last night's event is the most serious air disaster involving a commercial jet since 2009. Last night, more than an hour after news of the crash broke, President Donald Trump posted on his social media network, The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport.

The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a clear night. The lights on the plane were blazing. Why didn't the helicopter go up or down or turn? Why didn't the control tower tell the down or turn? Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane? This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. Not good. Trump's impulse to blame other people for the tragedy even before anything was

known about its causes reflects his rejection of the concept of the American government in favor of the idea that the world is simply a collection of individuals. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. government has performed an extensive and remarkably successful role in public safety. But Trump talks about the U.S. government, what he calls the deep state, as if it is the enemy and must be destroyed, while elevating those operating outside of it as society's true leaders. This rejection of the U.S. government began as soon as he took office as he purged officials and civil servants with the accusation that they had been poisoned

by Marxism or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI initiatives. Transportation safety officials were among those purged, and the loss of the person at the head of the Federal Aviation Administration or FAA during former President Joe Biden's term, Mike Whitaker, after he clashed with Elon Musk, captures Trump's anti-government worldview. After Whitaker called for Musk's SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations, Musk endorsed an employee's complaint that Whitaker required SpaceX to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have

zero environmental impact. Musk wrote, he needs to resign. Musk appears to believe that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multi-planetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. As Jeffrey Kluger reported for Time Magazine today, Musk has complained that the FAA's environmental and safety requirements were unreasonable and exasperating and that they undercut American industry's ability to innovate. Musk publicly complained the fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is a radical reform at the FAA. Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office. That same day, the administration

froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the US Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, Chief David Pekoski, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to eliminating the misuse of resources.

Other vacant positions at the FAA, according to CNN's Alexandra scores, are the Deputy Administrator, an Associate Administrator of Airports, an Associate Administrator for Security and Hazardous Materials Safety, Chief Counsel, Assistant Administrator of Communications, Assistant Administrator of Government and Industry Affairs, and Assistant Administrator for Policy, International Affairs, and Environment. Late this morning Trump spoke to reporters about the crash saying, 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. That opinion was that the people responsible for the accident were not of superior

intelligence. He claimed that his Democratic predecessors had lowered standards for air traffic controllers, although the language he quoted from the FAA website was from his own time in office. 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 has ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse." He continued, the FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner,

apparently forgetting that the former transportation secretary was part of the Biden administration and left office on January 20th. Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run the Department of Transportation? He's a disaster. He's just got a good line of ****. Trump blamed diversity hiring for the collision. When a reporter asked Trump, 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 answered, because I have common sense, okay?

And unfortunately, a lot of people don't. Trump's new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, whom Trump elevated to that position from his role as a weekend host at the Fox News Channel, also spoke, confirming that, we will have the best and brightest in every position possible. The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department. Shortly after the press conference, Sydney Ember and Emily Steele of the New York Times reported that staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington DC was not normal at the time of the crash, with one air traffic controller doing

the work, usually assigned to two. In response to Trump's comments, Buttigieg posted, despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew air traffic control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe.

Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again. Tonight, Trump held a televised signing of a new executive order blaming former presidents Barack Obama, who left office in 2017, and Joe Biden for the crash. It says that problematic and likely illegal decisions who left office in 2017, and Joe Biden for the crash.

It says that problematic and likely illegal decisions during their administrations minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration. They implemented dangerous diversity, equity, and inclusion tactics, it said, and recruited individuals with severe intellectual disabilities in the FAA. The executive order says that his return

to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion will ensure that all Americans fly with peace of mind. Midas Touch posted, Trump's handling of this situation should be treated as one of the biggest scandals in presidential history. But there is a larger story than that of Trump's attempt to blame Democrats for a disaster that happened on his watch. His administration seems to be trying to replace the government Americans have created through their representatives over centuries to promote the interests of all Americans Budget sent out the memo that froze all federal

grants and loans and thus prompted a constitutional crisis without getting approval from the White House. Trump has nominated right-wing religious extremist Russell Vogt, who was a key author of Project 2025, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, although he has not yet been confirmed. Emily Davies, Jeff Stein, and Faiz Siddiqui of the Washington Post reported yesterday that the proposal emailed to many of the 2.3 million people who work for the federal government, offering them an inducement to resign, was also a surprise to the White House. The memo came from the Office of Personnel Management, now run by Elon Musk's team,

and the email had the same title as one Musk sent to Twitter employees when he took over the company. Rather than cowering employees though, the unauthorized and unclear offer prompted federal employees to flood Reddit with vows to make these goons as frustrated as possible. One wrote, It took me 10 years of applying and 20 years experience

in my field to get here. I will not be pushed out by two billionaire trust fund babies. I'm not leaving. Annie Linsky and Rebecca Ballhouse of The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Metta has settled a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after it suspended him because of his participation in the January 6, 2021 attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Metta will pay $25 million. The reporters explained that Trump demanded the settlement from Metta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg after the 2024 election, saying the case had to be dealt with before Zuckerberg could be brought into the tent. As Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, said, It looks like a bribe and a signal to every company that corruption is the name of the

game. It seems that Musk and the technology billionaires want to smash the government to enable their futuristic visions, and Christian nationalists like Russell Vogt want to smash it to replace it with religious rule. Trump wants to smash it for money and power. But in the first two weeks of the new administration, their enthusiasm for breaking things has produced what Josh Marshall of Talking Points memo, even before today's frantic attempt to blame Democrats for the air tragedy, called a fairly epic faceplant.

Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thank you.